


clinging (to this fleeting breath)

by jonovak



Category: Glue (TV), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Carl Grimes, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, F/M, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Past Child Abuse, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:13:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 54,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5279843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonovak/pseuds/jonovak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgan never left Rick's hometown. When a strange pair of starved siblings save Daryl and Aaron from a violent death, Daryl offers them a new home in Alexandria. Stuff and things change. New friendships are formed. People die. Alternate Season 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Arrivals

**Author's Note:**

> First posted fanfic so please do NOT be gentle. I want all the (constructive) criticism I can get! You don't need to have watched Glue to read the story (though I recommend that you do because it was an amazing show). There will be no huge spoilers for Glue as I've just taken the characters of Eli and Cal and thrown them into the universe of TWD.

 

“We’ll go on three.”

Daryl tried to ignore his heart beating fast in his ribcage. He had to be alert and ready. So he would be notice every single thing when he finally died? Maybe. This was a suicide mission. Getting out of the car alive and away from this horde was nearly impossible. The groans from outside the thin windshield seemed to be getting louder. Staying inside was just as much of a suicide mission though. Now that the walkers had smelled and seen them, they would not simply turn around.

“One...” Daryl grasped the car door handle, his other hand holding his knife tightly. He still had his crossbow strapped to his back, but that would be no use with walkers approaching from every side. He glanced at Aaron and gave him a tight nod, his lips pressed together in a straight line. The other man looked scared shitless but ready.

“Two-“ Before he could even think about the number three, a loud, disturbing sound made him stop. It sounded almost like a chainsaw. But it couldn’t be? It had to be really loud if he could hear it over the groans of the walkers outside. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. Yet one glance at Aaron revealed that he had heard it, too.

“The fuck...?!” He had turned his head back to the front just to see the walkers on the windshield losing their heads, and then he could barely see anything as the glass was stained red with walker blood and cut-off veins and skin.

Daryl was about to tell Aaron that this was their chance when the door at his side was suddenly opened and he was practically yanked out of the door, bloody hands gripping his leather vest. He could make out a tall figure to his right, but he didn’t pay any attention to the stranger as he stabbed his knife into the skull of a walker coming right at him, not wasting any time pulling it out again to kill the next one. And the one after that one. He paid no attention to the bodies dropping to the cement parking space, stepping over limbs and heads to make his way towards the exit.

The small huffing barely audible over the loud sounds of the chainsaw told him that Aaron was still fighting and very much alive. He turned his head to see him head towards another walker, but they were just a few metres away from the fence so he grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him towards their safety. “Come on!”  
Together, him and Aaron pulled the fence door shut again to protect them from the walkers who quickly gathered at the other side, groaning and trying to get through to them. From his experience with the fence at the prison, Daryl knew this would hold at least for now. Not forever, but that wasn’t necessary. He would not spend any more time near those damn traps.

Things grew more quiet when the chainsaw stopped, and Daryl was turning around to take a proper look at their rescuer and ask him where the hell he’d come from, but before he could do that the man had grabbed Aaron to pull him tight against his front, a pistol pressed against his temple.  
It only took a second for Daryl to raise his crossbow and point it at the stranger, frowning. “Let him go, now,” he growled, eyes glancing down at the chainsaw the man had dropped before taking a step forward.

The stranger – and damn, he looked so young – yanked Aaron a few feet backwards and stared back at Daryl icily. “Not one step closer or I will pull the trigger. I know you can shoot me with that crossbow of yours, but don’t for a second think that your friend here won’t already be dead by then,” he warned.

Aaron blinked at looked at Daryl. The hunter could tell he was trying to come up with a way to get himself out of this mess. Daryl was trying to do the same.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Drop your bow.”

Daryl reluctantly did as he was told, but kept eye contact with the stranger as he carefully lowered his crossbow. Despite being taller than both him and Aaron, the stranger looked very young. Definitely older than Carl, maybe even older than Beth had been – this was no time to be thinking about Beth, dammit! – but still younger than most of the survivors of their group. Daryl mentally cursed at himself that they had gotten ambushed by a fucking kid. “Why the fuck did you even help us back there?!”

“Take your bag and open it. Kick over all the food and water, all the medical supplies and all the weapons that you have,” the stranger ordered.

“Oh, so you saved our lives just to rob us.” Daryl rolled his eyes. “Damn, we’re lucky. But you ain’t, boy.” He slid open his backpack and kicked a box of peanuts over to the young man, along with a small emergency first aid kit, his gun and the knife he’d used to kill all these walkers. There was no reason to tell him about the second knife stuck inside his boots. Last but not least, a half-full bottle of water.

The tall, lanky man eyed the contents of the bag with a frown. “That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Ain’t lying.”

The man’s hold on Aaron’s torso tightened. “What about you, can you confirm that?”

Aaron gave him a tight nod. “He’s not lying. I left my bag in the car, but I didn’t have more than he does.”

“How the fuck did you two survive with so little supplies?! You’re lying, you have to be.”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Daryl replied. “So either rob us for a pack of peanuts and let us go or just shoot us. Your decision.”

The brunet grumbled. “I’m allergic to peanuts.”

“Tough luck, kid.”

The man let out a hollow laugh. “Fuck. How about you show me your secret stash or I shoot your friend?”

“There ain’t no secret sta-“ Daryl was interrupted by the sudden sound of hurried footsteps rapidly approaching them. The sound was coming from behind him, and so he whipped around, crossbow held up high and pointed at the new arrival.

Daryl nearly exhaled when it really was just a kid this time, at least several years younger than the man currently holding Aaron at gunpoint. He stopped in his tracks, staring up at Daryl with wide blue eyes. He could even be younger than Carl, damn. What was a kid this young doing here? The world was no longer a place for boys like this.

He could see the boy’s eyes dart from him to the asshole stranger and Aaron behind him, and he looked even more shocked. “Eli, what the fuck are you doing?!”

Daryl glanced back and saw Eli - assuming that Aaron didn’t lead a secret second life and had previously been known as Eli – look at the boy with an angry look in his eyes. “I fucking told you to stay in the car!”

“Well, I didn’t. And I’m glad that I didn’t. Seriously, what are you doing? You told me you were just going to check out a few of the buildings for supplies!”

“They were overrun with walkers. I found these guys instead.”

Daryl gritted his teeth. “Look, kids, we really don’t have time for this.” He turned to look at Eli. “Let us go and we won’t bother you as long as you don’t bother us.”

“Yeah, let him go, Eli!” the boy snapped.

Eli didn’t move a muscle, his jaw tense as he stared at the boy with cold blue eyes. “No. Get back to the car and let me handle this.”

For a second nothing happened. Then Daryl felt a figure brush past him and all he could do was stare at the boy rushing towards Eli and Aaron. He even tried to grab the boy to hold him back, but he was too fast and too skinny.

“No!” Eli shouted as the boy tried to wrangle the gun from his hands. “Let go now!”

While the loud blow came as a shock to Daryl, he knew he should have seen this coming. With the loud noise Eli had let go of Aaron, who dropped to his knees and was now trying to get away from them. He didn’t appear to be hurt, thank – not god, definitely not god, there was no god.

Daryl crouched down to pick up his crossbow and pointed it straight at Eli, who looked a bit out of it before grabbing the boy’s shoulder, looking for wounds, not even noticing that the tables were turned. “Are you hurt? Did the bullet hit you? Graze you?”

The boy shook his head, not saying a word.

The features in Eli’s face shifted from worried to furious in a matter of seconds. “Are you fucking out of your mind?!” he shouted, shaking his shoulders, hard. “What the fuck was that?! You could have gotten yourself killed! You could have gotten me killed!”

“I wasn’t going to let you attack some guys who haven’t done anything wrong!” the boy suddenly shouted in a voice that was shriller than the man’s.

“You don’t know that, these guys could be serial killers!”

“Or they might not be! They certainly haven’t done anything to us! God, sometimes I hate you so much!” Abruptly, the boy turned around and walked past Daryl, rubbing at his eyes as if he was fighting back tears.

From the corner of his eyes Daryl could see Aaron reach for the gun that Eli had dropped as soon as it had fired.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now,” Daryl said, his teeth clenched. He had it up to here with that guy. It was pure luck that Aaron was still alive right now with that shot going off right next to his head.

“I didn’t actually hurt any of you,” Eli replied, crossing his arms. “And I’m unarmed so I can’t do anything to you anymore. Besides, you wouldn’t put an arrow in my head right in front of my brother.”

Oh. So they were brothers. Daryl thought they looked alike, although he hadn’t really cared about their looks before and he certainly didn’t now. “Your brother, who’s walking away right now? Don’t tell me what I would or wouldn’t do.”

“I bet you wouldn’t.” Eli stared at him before letting out an angry curse. “Get your ass back here right now!”

Nobody was more surprised than Daryl about the kid actually listening and stalking back towards the group. “Please don’t shoot him,” his voice came from behind Daryl, who really didn’t like the kid standing this close. The likelihood of him being armed was high in this goddamn world.

“I’m not going to shoot your brother and neither is my friend,” Daryl replied and nodded at Aaron, who was pointing Eli’s gun at the back of his head with unsteady hands. Daryl wondered if he could still hear after the gun being fired right next to his ear. “As long as you stand right next to him and don’t do anything stupid again.”

The boy didn’t reply and did as he was told, mimicking Eli’s stand with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“What’s your name?” Daryl wanted to know.

“Cal. And my brother’s name is Eli,” the boy said.

“How old are you, Cal?” Aaron’s voice came from behind them.

“Fourteen.”

Daryl changed a look with Aaron. Fourteen was damn young.

“And you don’t carry a weapon?” Daryl asked.

“Only my knife.”

Well, that was stupid. Why did Eli leave his brother alone and expect him to defend himself with only a knife? Unless he was lying. He couldn’t tell.

“Do you have anything to eat?” Cal turned around to look at Aaron with pleading eyes. “We haven’t had a decent meal in forever, and our last non-decent meal... it’s been a couple days.”

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have anything except for peanuts,” Aaron said.

Eli huffed. “Liar.”

“Shut your mouth or I shoot you,” Daryl snapped. “Actually, it looks like your bullet hit the can so there’s not even peanuts left.”

“There’s really nothing else?” The boy – no, Cal – looked crushed. “I’d do anything for food right now. Anything you want.”

Daryl exchanged a glance with Aaron, who nodded faintly. “We don’t have any food on us right now, that part is true,” the hunter explained. “But we have a community not far from here. There’s plenty of food, and running water, but most of all it’s safe. As safe as it gets.”

Eli let out a snort. “Bullshit.”

Cal glanced at Daryl, for the first time since they’d met looking hopeful. “Really? How much food? And how safe is it?”

“We have all kinds of food you like. Even the food you don’t like,” Aaron answered. “And there’s a steel wall around the community. No infected gets inside.”

Eli shot him a dark look. “Stop feeding him lies and giving him false hope.”

“It really is true,” Daryl said.

“I don’t believe you. Why would you even want to offer us sanctuary when I tried to attack you?”

“Your brother’s got to eat, doesn’t he?” Daryl replied simply. “And we ain’t the sort of people who let a boy like him starve. Now, we’ll take him and you can stay here if you don’t want to come with us,” he offered although he knew there was no way in hell Eli would let that happen. Not if he wasn’t completely fucked in the head. Which he might be. But it wasn’t very likely he was going to leave his brother from what he’d observed.

“Please, Eli,” Cal begged. “At this point I don’t even care if it’s just a big lie and they’re taking us to make barbeque from us. Still beats slowly starving to death.”  
Eli gritted his teeth. He looked sort of like a mix between a wild animal, blood splattered all over his clothes and skin from where he’d killed the walkers with the chainsaw, and an unruly member of a boyband. Daryl already despised him. With his jeans, (mostly) white shirt and arrogant stance he reminded him of one of his classmates from high school, the type of broody and mysterious jock that had a new girlfriend every week.

“I don’t care if you come or not,” Cal added sulkily. “I’m going with them.”

“Dammit, Cal,” Eli cursed. “There is no fucking safe zone. Look at all the places we’ve been to? Were we ever safe? There is no place in this world that is safe anymore. You’re a fool if you think that there is.”

“You’re right,” Aaron said. “There is no place that is completely safe anymore. Not in the world as it is now. But our community... it’s safer than most places right now. A lot safer. And isn’t that worth it? Sleeping in a place where you’re more likely going to wake up alive than getting chewed on by some walker?”

“When I heard Aaron talk about Alexandria, I didn’t believe him either. It sounded too good to be true. We all didn’t trust him. Hell, Rick even punched the guy. I’m telling ya, Aaron ain’t a liar.”

“Where’s your car? I believe you. I want to see it,” Cal said. “I know you’re not a liar. I’ve seen liars. You don’t look like one of them, either of you.”

“It’s parked not far from here, we’ll take you.” Aaron glanced at him and lowered his weapon. Daryl’s crossbow was still pointed at Eli’s head. “You’re welcome in our community, with or without your brother.”

“Fine! Fuck you, I’m going. But if you hurt Cal in any way-“

“-then you’ll kill us,” Daryl finished for him. “Let’s go. Should have gone a long time ago, gunshot like that only attracts walkers.” He gave Cal a glare, but the boy didn’t look too intimidated as he picked up the remains of Daryl’s supplies from the ground and helped him put it back into his bag. In fact, he looked excited. “Your brother,” Daryl said under his breath and put the first-aid kit back where it belonged, “he didn’t set that trap, did he?”

“What trap?”

“When we opened one of the trailers and it was full of walkers. And it sort of set up some damn chain-reaction because the rest of the trailers opened, too. Barely made it to the car when your brother found us.”

Cal shook his head. “Eli wouldn’t do that.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes. We’re not from here. We were just driving through when our car broke down. I stayed in the car, but he didn’t have enough time to put together a trap like that. And there’s no way he could have dealt with all those biters on his own.”

“Good point.” Daryl nodded and shouldered his backpack, getting up from the ground. “Let’s go. Now.”

“We should go back to our car first,” Eli suggested. He was standing next to Aaron, who still looked a bit uneasy around the stranger. “We don’t have any food left but it’s still our stuff.”

“We can do that,” Aaron agreed. “As long as you don’t attack us again.”

 

* * *

 

The walk was quiet except for Aaron’s voice calmly explaining that they would have to audition to be accepted into the group – “Cool, I’ll just have to remember my tap dancing skills,” Cal interrupted him – but that they wouldn’t hurt them even if they decided they wouldn’t take them in. “But they let Daryl in, and he’s not the guy with the best table manners,” Aaron teased.

“Fuck you.”

“Just, tell Deanna how much you want to be part of the group. But be honest with her.”

“I do want to be accepted,” Cal said. “I’m sick and tired of this shit. Being hungry. And wet. Cold.”

“We’ve survived for this long, and we would have done for some more time.” Eli’s bloodstained left hand was holding onto the chainsaw, but his gun was with Daryl. “We’re resilient. We can travel and survive.”

“But I don’t want to,” Cal argued. He didn’t say another word until they’d reached the car. “It’s still there,” he said in relief and opened the door to get out his backpack. There was a woollen blanket slung over the backseat, which Daryl grabbed.

“Shouldn’t take too long to reach our car,” he said. One thing that made his skin crawl with discomfort was the fact that Eli and Cal had to ride alone with Aaron. If they tried anything... He still did not trust the older boy at all. He’d shown that there was an ugly side to him. A side that many people had these days, but saving people from a walker horde just to rob them afterwards was a low. Fail to rob them, Daryl corrected himself.

When they made their way through a few bushes where they’d hidden the car and the bike next to the road he got an idea. “Eli, you’re with me on the bike,” he ordered. This way, if the boy tried anything, he would automatically endanger himself. Daryl knew from experience that crashing in a bike was way worse than crashing in a car, especially if you weren’t the one driving the car.

“No,” Eli said.

“Ain’t leaving you with the man you threatened to shoot not too long ago.”

“You did the same to me.”

“To defend myself, asshole. You ain’t got no choice in this.” Daryl rolled the bike towards the road. “Hop on.”

“I won’t leave Cal with a stranger,” Eli protested.

Daryl gritted his teeth. “Nobody’s hurting your brother. Now can we get the fuck on the road, there’s lots of walkers nearby and we ain’t exactly alone in this piece of land...”

“What do you mean, we’re not alone?” Eli looked confused.

“We trailed a man before we got to the trailers,” Aaron explained. “But we lost his trail. He might be dangerous.”

Daryl looked back to where his voice came from and saw that Cal was already in the seat of the car, though the door was still open so he could hear every word they were speaking. Aaron leaned against his side of the car. “Could be part of the people who set up the walker trap,” Daryl added. “Not gonna spend another minute in this place.” He mounted the bike and started the motor. “Get on or we leave you behind. Your choice.”

It didn’t take much more to convince Eli to do as he was told.

 

* * *

 

“Rick?”

The sun had already set by the time that the four of them made it back to Alexandria. Eli was only reluctantly clutching at Daryl’s vest as he tried to put as much space between them for the entire journey. But at least now he’d been able to let go after they parked the bike in Aaron’s and Eric’s garage. Aaron had been anxious when he could not find his boyfriend anywhere in or near their house. Daryl had wanted to check on his people in the two houses they were given, but in the end they agreed to follow the smoke of what appeared to be a small bonfire.

Rick just stared at him, gun in hand, face covered in blood. Glancing a little to the side, he could just make out the lifeless figure of Deanna hunched over the lifeless body of her husband. Her hands were covered in blood. So was her husband’s throat. Daryl’s stomach turned. Rick wouldn’t do this. Rick hadn’t done that. Except he totally would have under the right circumstances. As much as he admired the guy, Rick could be dangerous. Especially if someone threatened his family.

The thought of that made Daryl check for the other people of the group.

Carol? Standing at the side, a solemn look on her face. Uninjured. No need to worry.

Carl? Not there. But no other children in sight either.

Little asskicker? Probably with Carl.

Maggie? Missing.

Glenn? Same as Maggie.

Michonne? Next to Carol.

Sasha? Not there.

Abraham? There.

Eugene? Present.

Tara? Missing, but when he’d left she’d still been confined to the infirmary.

Rosita? Not in sight.

A lot of people of their group weren’t present. Why? He could see Carl babysitting Judith, and Tara was obviously not well enough to be up.

“Daryl...” Rick said quietly and lowered his gun a little further. “You’re back. And you brought...?”

Daryl could see his gaze shift from his own face to Eli and Cal standing next to him.

Out of the shadow of his eye Aaron stepped forward, reaching for his boyfriend’s shoulders. “What is going on here?” he whispered. “Oh my god... Reg. And Pete... what happened?”

“Pete tried to attack Rick but was stopped by Reg who got his throat slashed. Deanna told Rick to shoot Pete,” Carol replied in a level voice. “I’m sorry, Jessie. Rick did the right thing, and so did Deanna. But I know it must hurt.”

Jessie didn’t reply anything, just nodded, staring down at her husband’s corpse.

“I don’t feel safe around him,” one of the Alexandrian women spoke up and pointed at Rick. Daryl had no idea what her name was, and he did not care. “Just look at him. Since he and his group arrived, so many people have died. If he hadn’t attacked Pete yesterday, this never would have happened and Reg would still be alive.”

Rick attacked Pete? Damn it, how much had he missed?!

“Rick ain’t done anything wrong. It was Pete who killed Reg,” Daryl replied. His hand clutched the crossbow, just in case a fight was about to break out.

“How would you know? You weren’t even there.”

“That is what Carol said happened. Why y’all standing around here anyway?”

“When Rick attacked Pete yesterday he pulled out a gun that he stole from the armoury,” one of the men said. “And so most of us thought he couldn’t stay here anymore.”

“Bullshit,” Daryl said, getting angry. “Y’all gonna die without him. Can’t just send him away.”

“Does it matter?!” Deanna’s voice was loud and shrill from where she was crouching over Reg. “Get out! All of you! Now!”

“But we need to talk about this,” an Alexandrian spoke up. “Who are the new-“

“Out! Now! Tomorrow we speak.”

Only now Daryl’s gaze left the scene in front of him to check for Eli’s and Cal’s reactions. They looked confused, shocked. Maybe scared, in Cal’s case. “S’ gonna be alright,” Daryl mumbled under his breath.

“Let’s get back to the house,” Michonne suggested as the first Alexandrian’s started retreating. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Everyone seemed to accept her word as Rick didn’t suggest anything different.

Aaron came up to Daryl, Eric at his side. “Eli and Cal could come with us.”

“Nah,” Daryl replied. “They’ll come with us.” He didn’t tell them that the reason for that was that he did not trust Eli to try and rob them in their sleep. The older boy was standing near them with his brother and he didn’t want them to hear about his distrust.

“Daryl,” Rick said, approaching the small group near the entrance of the meeting. Daryl blamed it on the fact that this place basically forced them to wash regularly that he could recognise the foul smell of walker blood on his face. “Who are the two boys you brought?”

“Later,” Daryl replied, not wanting to tell the story of what happened earlier a thousand times. “We need to go back, get everyone together. Carl and Judy-“

“They’re okay,” Rick said. “Told ‘em to stay at home.”

It was home now, wasn’t it? It didn’t feel like home for Daryl. Then again, ‘home’ had never been a pleasant place for him, never been somewhere he could relax or feel loved.

 

* * *

 

The short walk back to the house they had been assigned to – well, one of the houses, but they still stayed in only the first – was uneventful in comparison to what had happened before. Eli didn’t do anything to get into trouble, and his brother was walking next to him, silently gawking at the houses they passed. Daryl knew what he must be thinking. All of this was so clean. They weren’t used to clean.

“Dad!” As soon as they had walked up to the front door and stepped inside, Carl rushed towards them from one of the other rooms. Daryl used the moment he stared at his father’s blood-stained face to snatch the baby from his arms so she wouldn’t get crushed in the following hug between father and son.  
Judith let out a small coo and tugged at the hair falling into Daryl’s eyes.

“Eurgh, you smell,” Carl complained against his father’s shoulder and lightly pushed him away. “What happened? Did they kick you out? Did you have to kill ‘em?” His voice was raspy and fast, his words barely understandable.

“No,” Rick replied and rubbed at his face. The only effect of that was that the blood got a bit more smeared. “But a walker got inside and it’s brains exploded into my face when I shot it. They didn’t come to any decision regarding what happened yesterday because Pete came and killed Reg. I had to shoot him, Deanna told me to.”

Carl frowned. “Why would he try to kill Deanna’s husband?”

“’Cause he stopped him from attacking me,” Rick answered truthfully. “I don’t know what’s going to happen now, Carl.”

“They can’t throw us out-“

“If they’re smart they won’t.”

“They can’t.” He walked over to Daryl and silently asked for him to hand him back Judith. Daryl did, making sure he was having a proper hold of her when he let go of the baby.  
Carl cradled his sister close to his chest and looked around. Daryl could practically pinpoint the exact moment his eyes made out the two strangers. “Who are they?”

“Yes, who are those people you and Aaron brought back?” Abraham asked.

Daryl sighed and nodded at them, silently telling them to speak.

“I’m Eli,” the older one told them, hand reaching for the back of his jeans as if he wanted to get his gun out. Daryl knew he couldn’t because it was still with him and that wouldn’t change too soon. “That’s my brother, Cal. We travelled alone when Daryl and Aaron found us.” Eli looked similar to Rick with the dried walker blood staining his hands, arms and white shirt, but the fact he was about half their age diminished his scary appearance.

“There was a trap, releasing walkers, not set by them, but Eli saved mine and Aaron’s life,” Daryl explained to the group. “Then he tried to rob us.”

“And you let him come with us?!” Rick sounded angry, like a bottle of coke you'd shaken for a while. Looking around, he noticed that the rest of the group seemed as uneasy about the new arrivals as their leader did.

“He was just trying to get food for me,” Cal spoke up for the first time. “I hadn’t – haven’t eaten in days.”

“How old are you, kid?”

“Fourteen. My brother’s twenty-three.” Cal glanced at Rick’s face and then looked away.

Hopefully that would calm Rick down a little. Fourteen was Carl’s age. As far as he could tell. It wasn’t easy to keep track of the time in the apocalypse, and Daryl had no idea when Carl’s birthday was. All he knew was that he had grown up impossibly fast ever since they had left Hershel’s farm. Having to live with the threat of both the undead and people after you as well as puberty seemed to do that to you.

“I’ll make you guys something to eat,” Carol said. “You too, Daryl. The rest of us have already eaten.” Her gaze turned towards Rick. “You. Get cleaned up. The way you look, you’re scaring the kids.”

Daryl knew that with Carl having seen his father rip out a man’s artery with his bare teeth, nothing that Rick did would scare him anymore.

Rick took another look at the new arrivals, then at Carl and Judith. His daughter had her eyes closed and was dosing against her brother’s shoulder, Carl swaying her softly. Rick’s face softened, finally. He made his way towards the stairs, probably towards the upstairs bathroom. “Daryl,” he called out quietly, tilting his head.

Daryl knew that with Abraham in the room, Eli would be incredibly stupid to try anything and so he followed Rick up the stairs into the bathroom at the end of the hallway. “What the fuck happened with Pete, Rick?” Daryl asked and shut the door behind them.

Rick gripped the edges of the sink and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I lost it yesterday. Not sorry the bastard is dead though. Carol told me a few things she found out from Sam, Jessie’s son. Says he once found his mother bleeding on the floor after Pete knocked her down.”

“Of course not,” Daryl agreed and grabbed a cloth, holding it under the tap from the sink. Actual running water. Fucking miracle. “Deserved it.”

“I wish they could see,” Rick said as he took the cloth from Daryl, pressing it to his face to try and get the blood off. It didn’t work so well. Every crease of his face was stained with blood and tiny pieces of walker brains. “How weak they are. How the way we do things is the only way if they want to survive.”

“They saw the walker that got inside,” Daryl remarked. “Should get them to see things. But how did he get inside? Someone else die?”

“Nah, sounded like Gabriel left the gates open.”

“Stupid bastard,” Daryl muttered. “What’s he up to anyway?”

“Don’t know. Maggie went to check on him, I think.” Rick wiped at his face and sighed. “Things are going to change around here. Let’s hope it will be for the better.”

“Yeah, two people died tonight,” Daryl said. “Because of Pete. ‘s all his fault. Not yours, Rick.”

Rick nodded, the wet cloth dropping down onto formerly spotless sink, mixture of blood and water staining it. “It was Aaron’s idea to bring those two people back, wasn’t it? Why did you go along with it? They tried to rob you.”

“No, it was mine,” Daryl admitted. “And yeah, one did. Not saying Eli ain’t dangerous. He is. But I wasn’t thinking of him. Was thinking of Cal.”

“That boy is Carl’s age,” Rick mumbled absent-minded and glanced up into the mirror. The blood was only partially gone, but it still clung to parts of his skin and his hair. “That why you did it? ‘Cause of Carl?”

Daryl was tempted to say yes, use that as an easy excuse. But he didn’t. Didn’t lie to Rick. “Was thinking of me,” he said. “And Merle. Kept thinking, what if I had been that young when the world went to hell? Merle, now he would’ve robbed people to keep me alive. Maybe I would have been okay with it even.”

Rick started unbuttoning his shirt. “Was Cal okay with it?”

Daryl shook his head. “Hell no. Wasn’t even with Eli when it happened, was supposed to stay in their car but he didn’t. Nearly got Aaron killed when he tried to take the gun that was pointed to his head. Shot went off, but it didn’t hit anyone. Were lucky.”

“That was stupid of him.”

“Yeah. Guess he had good intentions, but it was a stupid move.” Daryl shrugged. Debated telling Rick one thing he’d kept secret from him for a long time. He really didn’t want to tell him. Even thinking back made all the shame come back. But it hadn’t happened, they never went through with it. Would he be mad? Maybe. All he knew was that he would feel better if he got it off his chest. “Me and Merle, we planned to rob the camp.” The words were coming quickly. He tried to speak quietly but his voice still sounded loud in the cramped space of the tiny bathroom, Rick’s shirt halfway off his torso.

At first, Rick just looked confused. As if he had to remember what camp he was talking about. “When?” he finally asked.

“Planned it all before you arrived. Obviously we never went through with it because Merle never came back from Atlanta.” He didn’t know what Rick’s face looked like now. He was looking everywhere but at the other man.

He heard a sigh from Rick. Didn’t dare to look up. “I really can’t say I’m thrilled to hear that,” Rick said. “That you were going to rob innocent people. My boy... and my wife. But I know Merle. What he was like, what he would’ve done to keep him and you alive. And I know that you just went along with what he said.”

“It’s not like that, Rick. I agreed. Would have stolen everything from them. And that’s on me. I could have said no.”

“You were a different person then,” Rick argued.

“Maybe.”

“You were. If you had the opportunity now, would you steal from me? From Carl? Would you take our food and water and guns and disappear?”

Now that made Daryl look up and give Rick a dark look. “Course not,” he replied angrily. “Why the fuck would I do that for?”

Rick glanced at him, his eyes soft. “So you see, you are not the same.”

Daryl gave him a shrug and looked back at the tiled floor. “Are you gonna let Eli and Cal stay?”

He could hear the clinking sound of Rick’s belt buckle. “Yes. I think they deserve another chance, don’t you?”

“Don’t ask me, I was the one to invite them to come, not Aaron.”

“You also said Eli saved your life.”

“He did. Boy had a damn chainsaw.”

He looked up to see Rick’s face turn into a grin. “I was wondering when we would finally encounter one of those.” He slid his jeans and boxers down his legs and took a few steps towards the shower, his bare back towards Daryl. “I need hell more than some catlick to get all this blood and the damn smell off me. Had to shoot that walker in the head and he was right above me.”

“We should give Gabriel hell,” Daryl said, grinning at the irony of his own words, “for keeping that gate open. That can’t happen again.”

“No, it can’t.” Rick’s voice was muffled under the sound of running water. “We gotta be more careful in here. Can’t let our guard down for nothing. So we should keep an eye on the new arrivals. I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the thought of having them around Carl and Judith. We don’t know them one bit. They could be spying on us for a larger group.”

“Don’t seem like it,” Daryl replied. “But I understand. ‘s why I didn’t want them to go with Aaron and Eric. Here we can keep an eye on them.”  
He watched Rick letting his head fall back and rubbing his hand over his face under the spray of water. “Good idea. Do they have any weapons on them?”

“Eli’s chainsaw should be downstairs, and I took his gun after the whole thing went down. Pretty sure they still have knives though.”

“It’s our responsibility to make sure they don’t do anything stupid with them. They’re not part of our group, Daryl. They’re strangers.”

“I know that.”

As Rick started scrubbing his back, Daryl wondered how he could be so open about his body in front of another person. Maybe it was the lack of scars on his skin. It wasn’t that he didn’t have any, but the ones he had, they weren’t prominent. Small residues from wounds that had been healed for a long time.

Daryl settled on the floor, back against wall next to the laundry basket – which hadn’t been used that much, they still had to get used to having such trivial things back in their lives – and told Rick everything he and Aaron had encountered on their mission, absent-mindedly picking through the blood-splattered clothes left discarded on the floor.

 


	2. The Gun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick reminder that no matter what it looks like at the end of the chapter, the main pairing is Carl/Cal, so no, I did not get confused while tagging. The Carl/OMC means the same pairing, I added the tag because if I was looking for stories that included pairing Carl with a boy not from TWD, that is where I would look.

 

One of the downsides of living in the apocalypse, Carl pondered, was that information was not available anywhere anymore. He’d grown up used to people going on the internet all the time, in a time where everyone in middle school had their own phone and at least one computer at home. If he’d wanted to know what the biggest dinosaur in existence was called, he had been able to just look it up. Now, it wasn’t that easy. Not that he would want to look up silly facts like that anymore, no. He just wanted to know how Judy was doing developmentally without having to ask one of the adults. Sometimes he felt stupid for asking questions like that. Carol had assured him that it was perfectly alright that she wasn’t standing up yet, but he wanted to be absolutely sure.

A few days ago a rare treat had found their way into the kitchen – fresh cherries. And since it had just been him and Eugene in the house he hadn’t been able to give any to Judy because he had no idea if they were okay for babies to eat. With her, they couldn’t take any risks - they had nearly lost her more than once. She had to be okay for the rest of her life. It was him who’d killed his mum. The best thing he could do for her was keep Judith safe. It’s what _she_ would have wanted.

It was way past Judy’s bedtime. She was fast asleep despite the room being bright from all the lights being on. Electricity was something Carl had to get used to again. Every few seconds he caught himself thinking it was midday because there was no way it was this bright at night. He knew he should have put his sister down in her crib, but she’d fallen asleep on his chest and that was too cute to interrupt. He felt strangely proud as he watched her, back rested against the sofa, his knees drawn up. She didn’t snore, thank god, but the small, breathy puffs coming out from her mouth were too damn adorable. Careful not to wake her, he ran his hand over the soft, think hair of her head. It was strange how blonde it was. Neither his dad nor his mom had ever had blonde hair. But he could already tell she’d look pretty with it. It suited her.

Carl looked up sharply when the front door opened, automatically putting his arms around Judith to protect her. But it was just Maggie, Sasha and Gabriel. All three of them looked awfully quiet when they stepped inside. “We heard what happened,” Maggie addressed the room. “Where’s Rick?”

“He’s getting cleaned up,” Michonne informed her. “I don’t know what the others told you, but Deanna ordered him to execute Pete.”

“They did mention that,” Maggie said. “They’re scared. They also said that Daryl and Aaron brought back two people from their run.”

“They’re in the downstairs bathroom. Probably haven’t gotten a chance to take a real shower in years.”

“I’m going to interview them tomorrow, I doubt Deanna has time to do that.” She looked around the room. “Where’s Glenn?”

A wave of shrugs. “He wasn’t at the meeting,” Abraham said.

“He didn’t stay with us in the house either,” Carl commented.

“Maybe he’s visiting Tara at the infirmary,” Michonne said.

Maggie nodded. She looked worried, Carl noted. He wondered what she was thinking. In this world, it was hard not to assume the worst when usually the worst happened.

But not to Judith. For a long time, he’d thought she was dead but then she wasn’t. Though miracles like that only that once.

“I’m going to look for him.” Maggie said, voice a lot harder than he was used to. “He’s got to be somewhere. And I have to make sure he’s not...” Everyone knew what she was talking about. With walkers roaming around and Pete killing an innocent man, things had been more than chaotic in Alexandria today. She didn’t waste any more time, just disappeared out of the door, giving both Sasha and Gabriel a glance that Carl had no idea what it meant.

A small creaking noise told him there was a person coming out of the downstairs bathroom. It was the younger one of the new arrivals. If he remembered correctly his name was Cal. That name was awfully close to his own name. The boy’s brown hair was wet and sticking up in every direction, but Carl could tell it was a lot shorter than his own. Somehow he must have gotten regular haircuts even in this world. Carl hadn’t let anyone touch his own hair in ages. He liked it this way.

Cal looked around the room, taking in all the new faces. Carl felt bad for him. If he was in the boy’s shoes he’d be terrified. God knows what had happened to him on the road and now he was in a completely new environment with people who could be either saints or your worst nightmare. It was hard to tell, and Carl had to admit he probably wasn’t the best judge of character. He just didn’t have much experience. If his dad or Daryl told him to trust someone, he did. Though they never said that. He vividly remembered his dad telling him that he was not safe. No matter what. He would never forget those words. 

A few moments later his staring was noticed. Cal glanced at him, blue eyes meeting across the room. Carl couldn’t make out any animosity in his glance. He just looked curious. Carl tried not to laugh at the sight of him in his clothes. The shirt was about three sizes too big and must have belonged to Abraham. The pyjama pants weren’t so bad, but they still bundled up at his feet. It was a wonder he made it through the room without tripping over his feet when he approached Carl and sat down next to him on the floor. But he wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at Judith.

“Is that your sister?”

Carl nodded.

“Good. No offense, but you look a bit young to be a father.”

Carl couldn’t help but grin at that. “Nope, no way. I’m just fourteen. I think.”

Cal laughed. “So am I. What’s her name?”

“Judith.”

“Beautiful name,” Cal commented. “You’re lucky to have her.”

“I know. There’s not many babies… who survived. As soon as we arrived in Alexandria everyone was just dying to hold her. They’re always asking,” Carl said.

“I’m not asking.”

“Yeah, you’re not...”

“Sleeping so peacefully, it would be a sin to move her,” Cal said and smiled. “Also I’d probably drop her.”

“I know, I’m gonna be stuck in this position the whole night, or at least until she wakes up.” Carl brushed his hand over her soft head again. “Don’t drop her. Dad would kill you without a second thought.”

“Your dad, that was the one covered in blood, right?”

Carl just nodded.

Cal looked at him. It made Carl feel a little uncomfortable, as if he was being judged when it should be the other way around. “I don’t know your name yet.”

“It’s Carl. Carl Grimes.”

“Huh,” Cal said. “That could get confusing.”

“If you stay,” Carl remarked.

Cal looked a bit anxious at that, as far as Carl could tell. “Do you think they’re going to send us back out onto the road?”

Carl shrugged. “I don’t know. Maggie’s going to interview you and your brother tomorrow, she said.”

“Interview?”

“She’s going to ask you a few questions. It’s not bad, but everything is recorded on camera so you shouldn’t lie.”

“What kind of questions?” Cal wanted to know.

“I don’t know. It was Deanna – the woman who’s just lost her husband, the nice one – who interviewed me, not Maggie.”

“Have you been here for long?”

Carl shook his head. “No, our group, we arrived not too long ago. Before that, we were outside.”

“It feels strange,” Cal mumbled, “being surrounded by walls. Being safe.”

“We’re not safe.”

“Maybe we are now.”

 

* * *

 

They spent the next twenty minutes or so in silence, mainly because Cal copied Judith and fell asleep. Not on Carl, of course, but right next to the siblings, his head resting back against the couch. Carl thought he was crazy, letting his guard down like that in a room full of strangers. If he could fall sleep like this, he had to be exhausted.

After a while, his dad and Daryl came back from upstairs. Rick didn’t smell as bad as he did before, but Daryl still rank of zombie guts. The day that he didn’t was time to worry.

Rubbing at his head with a towel – a new luxury – Rick walked over to his son. “Where’s Eli?”

Carl shushed him, pointing at Cal and then at Judith on his chest. Thankfully she was a pretty heavy sleeper and didn’t wake at the smallest noise.

Rick smiled at the sight of his daughter and leaned down to press a kiss to her head.

“Eli’s in the downstairs bathroom,” Carl whispered. “I think he let his brother shower first.”

“Do you trust them?” Rick whispered.

“Daryl does. Or else he wouldn’t have brought them back.”

“I’m asking if you do,” Rick said, his voice low. “And Daryl doesn’t trust them, not completely, or he wouldn’t have taken Eli’s gun. You talked to the younger one?”

“He seems okay,” Carl answered, taking another look at the boy to make sure he was in fact asleep. His even and deep breathing indicated that he did. He looked small in the big shirt he was wearing. It looked like it was about to swallow him. “Sorta nice, I guess. Like a normal kid.” Not like me, Carl thought.

Rick sighed. “Look. Daryl brought them back, but that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous. Now, the only reason they’re in this house right now is that we are the only people in this community who can make sure they do nothing bad. So I want you to be on guard around them. Okay?”

“I’m not stupid, dad.”

“Watch your tone.”

“Fine. Sorry.” Carl looked at his father. He looked almost strange, his face free of any blood and his hair wet and neat. He still hadn’t gotten used to the lack of beard, but the stubble was slowly coming back. Carl wondered how soon it would be until he would have to start shaving, too. “I’m glad you’re okay, dad.” He didn’t know where his words came from. But Pete had been trying to attack his father, not Reg. The group could have come back with his corpse, one clean shot through the head so he wouldn’t turn. Carl bit his lip. He knew he shouldn’t think about that. But he couldn’t help it.

“I’m glad you’re okay, too,” Rick said, his voice soft.

 

* * *

 

It didn’t take long for Eli to come back out of the bathroom, but unlike Cal, he was still wearing his own clothes despite them being blood-stained. Carl watched him as he leaned against the wall of the living room, his posture stiff and tense. From what he could see he and Cal did look alike, though Eli had sharper features. Cal’s face was a little more round.

When Carol announced that food was ready – she had to have made something completely from scratch because there were no leftovers in the apocalypse – Carl shook the sleeping boy’s shoulder.

Cal jerked awake. He looked panicked, scrambling away from the sofa and quickly getting up to his feet. He moved his head around until his gaze fell onto Eli. “Shit,” he cursed.

“You’re in Alexandria, remember?” Carl said quietly.

Cal nodded, looking down at his big shirt. “Right. Now I do. It was weird when I woke up and everything was so bright. I think it’s going to take a while for me to get used to electricity again.”

“Cal,” Eli called out to his brother. “This woman said we should come eat.”

“Right,” Cal said and looked around a little helplessly, staring at the kitchen area of the room which was clearly not in use.

“With how many people we are, the Alexandrians gave our group two houses to live in” Carl explained. “They’re right next to each other. Carol likes cooking and serving dinner in the other house because we shouldn’t cook and eat in the same room as we sleep in.”

 

* * *

 

The living room was a lot emptier once the two boys disappeared to get their first meal in days. His dad, Daryl and Michonne had joined the late dinner in the second house, so it was only Abraham, Eugene and Sasha playing a game of cards. Neither of them looked like they were very much into it. Gabriel was sitting in an armchair, staring off into the distance. He wasn’t a scary person, Carl thought, but he was still very creepy sometimes.

He briefly debated joining the others, but it looked like the dullest game of cards ever played. Abraham looked incredibly bored, if he was interpreting the stern look on his face right, and everyone knew Eugene was going to win anyway.

What would happen tomorrow? He was sure the residents of Alexandria would need their time to grieve. From what he’d heard they didn’t lose that many members of their group every day. They weren’t used to the constant death surrounding them, not like his group was. Deanna had lost both her husband and one of her sons in so little time. No surprise Maggie would be doing interviews instead of her. And Ron had lost his father today. He did feel sorry for his friend, didn’t even want to imagine what it would feel like to lose his own dad. One time he nearly did, and that was enough. If he was lucky, he would die before Rick. Then he tried to feel bad about Pete dying, and just couldn’t. He wasn’t sad. Not at all. In a way, he felt happy about it. Maybe not happy. But relieved. Because Pete had tried to kill Rick, and anyone who attacked his father deserved to die.

Carl’s mind wandered to the new arrivals. He knew nothing about them except for their names and the fact Eli had tried to rob Aaron and Daryl. Anyone who tried doing that had to be completely out of their mind or super badass. Maybe it was the latter. Anyone who fought walkers with a chainsaw had to be really cool. He could still see the blood and guts clinging to it. Before he knew it, he’d gotten up, a sleeping Judith securely held against his chest. When the smell of rotten walker flesh assaulted his nose, he scrunched up his face and carefully placed Judith in her crib.

Walking over to the chainsaw and touching the chain, he wasn’t surprised to find out that the teeth were very sharp. His fingers came back stained red, but it wasn’t his blood. Maybe Eli was a badass after all, and a very dangerous one. To Carl, he didn’t look like a kid. He himself was barely a kid anymore and Eli seemed to be several years older.  Then he remembered his dad saying that Daryl didn’t trust that guy, that he took his gun. Where had he put it? He just wanted to see it, see what kind of weapon Eli used – aside from the chainsaw.

Nobody even noticed when he opened the bag that Daryl had left in one corner of the living room, too busy being bored of their minds with the game. There were only little supplies left in Daryl’s bag, which was why it didn’t take long to grab the gun from the bottom of the backpack. After not carrying one for so long it felt heavy in his hands. He’d seen one like this before, it was a Glock. Wondering what sort of gun Cal used to carry, he searched for a second one in the bag but couldn’t find it. Was Daryl carrying it on himself? Had it gotten lost? It was strange there was no second gun.

Holding the Glock only reminded him of how much he missed his Beretta. Right now it lay somewhere locked away by the Alexandrians. He couldn’t express just how stupid that was. It only took one person to leave open the gates and walkers could get inside. Without their guns, they were basically helpless. Sure, they still had their knives, but against a large amount of them knives were no good. Not to mention people. A knife couldn’t protect them against people.

Taking a quick glance through the room to make sure nobody was watching he stuck the gun into the back of his trousers, hiding the grip behind his button-down shirt. A gun was no use lying around abandoned in a backpack, and it wasn’t like Eli needed it at the moment. There was no way his father or Daryl would let him have it back any time soon.

He could feel the weight of the gun press against his lower back when he sat down on the couch and grabbed a comic book from the small table next to it. It wasn’t the one that belonged to Enid but instead one that Mikey had given to him on a loan. It was the first part of Marvel’s Civil War series, but he’d already been warned that they didn’t currently have part two.

 

* * *

 

He’d gotten lost in the world of superheroes when the front door suddenly slammed open. Carl’s head jerked up, but it was just Rosita. “Where’s everyone?” she asked. “I’ve got news. Glenn made it back.”

Carl hadn’t been aware the man had been missing in the first place. He picked up the radio from the couch table, connecting them to the second house. “Dad!” he called out, and not too many seconds later Rick bolted through the main door, followed by Daryl, Carol, Michonne, Cal and Eli.

“What happened to Glenn?” Abraham wanted to know.

“He said that Nicholas lured him out of Alexandria to kill him,” Rosita told them, taking in a deep breath.

“What?!” Rick looked incredulous.

“But he didn’t kill him,” Daryl said. “Right?” He looked at Rosita with a serious expression on his face.

Carl could feel his entire body go tense and cold. Glenn couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t be. Glenn had been with them since the beginning. He could survive anything. He wasn’t dead.

 “No, he didn’t. They fought, and Nicholas put a bullet through his shoulder. Then they carried each other back here,” Rosita said and frowned. “There’s no doctor left since... Pete is dead. But the people who used to act as nurses are looking after him right now. He’s stable.”

“Stable?” Daryl asked.

“He’s going to be okay,” Rosita clarified. “Maggie’s with him right now. And so is Tara. She woke up earlier today.”

Rick started pacing through the room. “We need to do something about Nicholas,” he said. “Do you know where he is?”

“He’s in the infirmary, too, Glenn didn’t go easy on him. But Rick-“

“We can’t do anything tonight,” Michonne interrupted her. “Too much happened already. If you go out and attack Nicholas we won’t be allowed to stay in here any longer.”

“She’s right, dad,” Carl said, hand brushing against the gun at his back just to check if it was still there. “You can’t kill Nicholas or we’ll be out on the road again tomorrow.”

“We can’t let them get away with attacking one of our own,” Rick insisted.

“We won’t,” Daryl said. 

“Nicholas is a liar.” Carol came up to Rick. “He’s going to spin this story the way he wants it, he already lied about what happened on the run. He’s going to say that Glenn attacked him and that it was self-defence. In the long run, we’re going to have to get rid of him, but going out and shooting him is not the way to go.”

“Personally, I think it should be up to Glenn to decide what we should do,” Rosita said. “When he’s better.”

“I’m going to see him,” Rick decided. “Glenn, not Nicholas,” he added after seeing the weary eyes of the rest of the group.

He’d started making his way to the door when Daryl stopped him by placing a hand on his shoulder. “Everyone’s out there is on edge,” he said. “Some may want you dead. Maybe it’s better if we stick together for now.”

Carl watched as his dad glanced at Daryl and shook his head after a few seconds. “I need to see him. Maybe I can help, I know a few things about stitching up a gunshot wound by now.” His chuckle sounded too grim. “You’re in charge here. Make sure everyone is safe. I trust you.” He gave the hunter a nod and waited until he got a nod in return, and then he was gone, Rosita following after him.

At least Daryl had no idea what a bedtime was and so it would doubtful anyone would insist he go to bed, Carl thought as he went back to reading the comic book. But with his dad out there and the whole town out for his blood he could barely concentrate on what was happening with the Superhero Registration Act. The constant pressure of the gun stuck between his back and the couch reminded him of the fact things had changed around Alexandria. Even in this room, things weren’t as relaxed as they used to be. Carl could hear no laughter, no whispered jokes, no simple conversation. Everyone was one edge, waiting for the night to be over so they would know what would happen to them tomorrow.

Out the corner of his eye he noticed a person standing behind the couch, reading the comic over his shoulder. He was pretty sure it was Cal. The feeling of being watched was unnerving while reading, but Carl pretended he didn’t notice because he had no idea what to say, not wanting to be the one to start a conversation.

“I think I might need your help,” the person behind him said, and yup, the voice could only belong to Cal. Not that he knew the other boy’s voice well, but it was several pitches higher than his brother’s and everyone else’s. Except for the girls’ voices. “With the names,” Cal clarified when he saw Carl’s confused expression. “I don’t want to offend anyone because I got their name wrong.”

Carl shrugged. “Honestly, I doubt anyone will care about that.”

“Please.”

“Okay.” Carl sighed. If this made Cal feel safer, he should help him. “You already know Daryl and Judith. The man who just left was my dad and he’s called Rick. The woman who left with him is Rosita. Carol is the one who cooked for you.” He then pointed out Michonne, Sasha, Abraham, Eugene and Gabriel out to him. “Maggie, Glenn and Tara aren’t here, they’re in the infirmary. But you should recognise them easily, Glenn is the only Asian of the group and the two are usually with him. But only the one kissing him is Maggie.” 

“So they’re together?”

Carl nodded.

“Is anyone else paired? What about your dad? Is he dating Carol? Or Michonne? Daryl?”

Carl laughed and shook his head. “No way. No, my dad’s not dating anyone.” He looked down at the comic. “Not since mom died.”

“I’m sorry,” Cal said quietly. “Mine did, too.”

“Whose didn’t?” Carl bit down on his lower lip and turned the page.

“I mean, mine died before the outbreak. I have no idea if my father is still alive, but I doubt it. This entire time, it’s just been me and Eli. How did you find such a large group?”

Carl wanted to ask how she died, but he didn’t. Didn’t want to bring back bad memories, if Cal had any. So he answered the boy’s question instead. “It just happened. At first we were a very different group... but nearly everyone died except for dad, me, Carol, Daryl and Glenn. We found other survivors, but most of them died, too.”

Cal looked at him intently. “How did they die?”

“Most of them were bitten. Or shot. There was a very bad man, he was so fucked up, he attacked our home...”

“Other survivors can be scary, I know. We never joined another group. Eli thought it would be too dangerous.”

“Then why did you go with Daryl and Aaron?” Carl asked, curious. If they were avoiding other survivors, following two strangers to a community that sounded too good to be true made no sense.

“We had no choice, if we hadn’t we would have starved.”

“You could have found some food.”

“We tried, but there was nothing left in the houses and stores we went into. Everything had already been taken,” Cal explained. “We tried to make it to the next town but the car ran out of-“

“Where is it?!” Daryl sounded furious. Carl’s hand automatically went to where his thigh holster usually sat on his leg.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Eli looked back into the barrel of Daryl’s crossbow, no fear in his eyes, only anger and hate. “Put that thing down, I have done nothing wrong here.”

“Like hell you haven’t!” Daryl yelled. “Damn liar. Didn’t think I would notice it’s gone? You got one chance to put it back, just put it down onto the ground.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about!”

“The damn gun you pointed at Aaron!”

All the others had stopped what they were doing. Sasha even got up and nodded at Daryl before searching Eli’s body. “If he took it back, he’s not carrying it.”

“Where did you hide it, the bathroom?” Daryl squinted at him.

Cal walked around the couch and stood next to Daryl. “Please, Eli, if you have it give it back. It’s not worth the trouble.”

“Fuck you, Cal! You think I’d be so stupid to take it from his bag?”

“Maybe you would be,” Cal replied and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Please. I want to stay here. They’re going to find it anyway, no matter where you hid it and then they’re kicking us out.”

“Only you, Eli,” Daryl corrected Cal. “Your brother ain’t done nothing wrong.”

“Neither have I! Fuck you!” Eli spat at the ground.

The gun pressing against his back felt heavier than it did a few moments ago when he’d been chatting to Cal. He didn’t _have_ to give it back. Eli was dangerous, had tried to rob Daryl and Aaron. And this way they would kick out Eli but Cal could stay.

In the end, his conscience won the battle in his mind and he slowly got up from the couch. He didn’t want to be responsible for Eli getting kicked out. It would be a death sentence. And he didn’t want to lie to Daryl. “Hey,” he mumbled, approaching the hunter. He put his hand on his shoulder, at which Daryl flinched, moving it out of his reach in a swift motion.

“Not now, Carl.”

“He didn’t take the gun,” Carl said. “I did.” Lifting the back of his shirt, he gripped the Glock and pulled it out of his pants.

Daryl gave him a look, not yet lowering the crossbow pointing at Eli. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Sorry?”

“Can you put that thing down now and let me go?” Eli snapped, which resulted in Sasha letting go of his wrists and Daryl slowly lowering the crossbow.

Daryl turned and glared at Carl, who really wanted to take a few steps backwards but not look like a coward. “You just took it?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“You’ve got no right to go through my stuff!”

“I wasn’t sneaking around looking at your things, I was looking for the gun. I need it to protect Judy,” Carl tried to defend his actions.

“You don’t need a gun for that.”

“I do. I’m not that good with my knife yet, not against people.” He looked at Eli. “I didn’t have my gun for a long time because the Alexandrians took it and locked it away. But they didn’t search your bag when you came back from the run.” Even if nothing was going to happen, he just found it strange not carrying a gun around. But he didn’t tell Daryl that.

Sasha sighed. “Why are we arguing about this? Let him have it.”

“It really is of no use in your bag, Daryl,” Carol chimed in.

“You could just give it back to me,” Eli said. Everyone ignored him.

“Fine. You can have it for now, but in the end, it’s up to Rick,” Daryl decided. “But if you ever go through my stuff again you’ll be missing a few fingers, got it?” The expression on his face told Carl that he was both joking and deadly serious at the same time. “And keep the safety on if you carry it like that or you’ll be missing one ass cheek very soon.”

Carl smiled and put the gun back into the waistband of his trousers, resisting the urge to pull his tongue at Eli. That would be incredibly childish. And he wasn’t a child.

“Why the fuck would you give a gun to a 14-year-old boy?” Eli begged to differ, but Carl knew his opinion was worthless next to Daryl’s.

“Why the fuck not?” Daryl asked.

“They’re too dangerous, they’re not toys. And with how little ammo there is, only adults should carry them,” Eli argued.

“Nah, Carl is one of our best shots,” Daryl said. “Got it from his dad.”

Carl blushed and quickly walked back to the couch, not liking being the centre of attention although technically it was his fault for taking the gun in the first place. He glanced up at Cal, who looked impressed.

“I didn’t mean to get your brother in trouble,” Carl said quietly and grabbed the comic.

Cal shrugged. “It’s okay. You stepped in and told the truth.”

Carl didn’t tell him that he nearly hadn’t.

 

* * *

 

When Rick made it back to the house, the main lights in the living room were already off, just a few candles on the dining table were alight and painted the room in a dim, yellow light. Most of the adults were sat at the table, talking in hushed voices. Across the room, Eli and Cal had settled down on a mattress. While the older of the two was sitting up against the wall, eyes open and alert, his brother was sleeping in the small space left, knees drawn up against his chest. He was wrapped up in a blanket that Carol had provided for him.

Carl wasn’t asleep yet. He lay propped up on his elbows, a flashlight helping him read the comic without having to squint at the words. He could hear the sound of a chair scrape back. No doubt it was Daryl who would tell Rick about the gun. They talked in whispers so Carl couldn’t hear the entire conversation. The only sentences he could make out were Daryl’s “the fuck you put me in charge for” and “fuck you officer” and then “go deal with your kid”.

When Rick approached him he tried to pretend he was surprised to see him, like he hadn’t been trying to listen in on his and Daryl’s conversation. “Hey, dad. Is Glenn okay?”

“He’ll be fine, he’s tough as nails,” Rick replied and sat down at the mattress.

“And Nicholas? You didn’t kill him, did you?” Carl knew he wouldn’t be too upset if the answer were yes.

“No, I did not. Had to do my best not to knock him off his seat in the infirmary. Might have yelled a bit at him until Tara complained I gave her headaches.” He ran his hand over the stubble on his chin. “Daryl told me you stole Eli’s gun. Is that true?”

“You already know I did, dad,” Carl replied and rolled his eyes. “It’s not like Daryl would lie to you. But I didn’t actually steal it from Eli. It was... it was like a spare gun, just lying around. So I took it.”

“You mean lying around in Daryl’s backpack,” Rick corrected him. “I don’t like you going through his stuff. Or anyone’s private stuff for that matter. You should have asked him about it.”

Carl shrugged. “I guess. But it’s okay. He said I could keep it.”

“He said you could keep it until I came back.”

“ _Can_ I keep it? Please?”

Rick sighed. “You can, but only if you promise me to be careful. It’s the only gun that the Alexandrians don’t know about. Me and Daryl will have to give our guns back to get locked in – that is if things stay the same around here – but they didn’t know Eli had a gun. That means you need to keep it hidden at all times. Do you understand?”

Carl nodded.

“You can’t show it to your friends or take it out around the others unless you-“

“-unless I absolutely have to,” Carl finished the sentence for him. “I know. And I promise. I’m not stupid.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing, keeping our only gun with you,” Rick thought out loud. “They would never suspect you. Hell, they’d suspect me. Probably will keep checking me. And Daryl. But not you.”

Carl smiled. His dad was right. This was the best plan of action. And the best part about it was that it was him who would get to keep Judith and everyone else safe.

“Now,” Rick said, grabbed the flashlight from his son’s hands and turned it off – earning a sputtered “Hey!” from him – “It’s really time for you to get some sleep.”

“Not fair,” Carl replied and gave his dad a bitter look. “There’s no bedtimes in the apocalypse.”

“Oh, there are,” Rick said and gave him an amused smile. “As long as I say there are. Night, Carl.”

 

* * *

 

It was dark around all around him when Carl opened his eyes again. Of course all the candles had been put out when everyone went to bed. He lifted his head from where he’d been lying on the mattress. It felt strange using a pillow instead of just a sweater to rest his head on, but his neck definitely wasn’t protesting. Next to him his father was snoring quietly. He knew that it wasn’t what had woken him up. Rick’s snores were something he was completely used to now, and listening to them only made falling asleep easier. Back at the prison Carl had slept in his own cell, but on the road he’d gotten used to the sounds of his father’s presence right next to him trick his brain into thinking he was safe.

The makeshift bed at the foot of Rick’s and Michonne’s mattresses was empty. When Carl walked over to the window and glanced out he could make out Daryl’s figure on the dark porch, his back against the railing, cigarette in his mouth, crossbow in his lap. It didn’t surprise Carl that he was watching over them although no one had asked him to. Carl smiled faintly. Apart from his dad’s raspy snores right next to his ear, Daryl’s eyes keeping watch outside made him feel well-protected.

Careful not to step on anyone’s hand or fall over anyone’s legs, Carl slowly made his way towards the downstairs bathroom. Right next to the door, Eli and Cal had put down the mattress they shared. Eli was sleeping with his head against the wall. Carl winced – he didn’t want to imagine what the older boy’s neck would feel like in the morning. At least he had taken his shirt off and was using it as a small pillow. Cal was still sleeping on his side, blanket wrapped around his shoulders, but now his head was resting on his brother’s lap.

Very quietly Carl opened the door to his bathroom and took a leak, mentally cursing when the toilet flushed so loudly everyone had to have woken up from that. This world had turned every single survivor into a light sleeper. You had to be or you were dead.

Carl zipped up his pants and went to wash his hands in the sink. Running water was marvellous.

The sound of the bathroom door falling shut made him turn around on the spot. His hand flew to the back of the pants when he realised it wasn’t any of his people who’d come into the kitchen but Eli. A second later he was pointing the barrel of the gun at the stranger while he reached to close the tap with his free hand. “What do you want?”

“I just want to talk to you, Carl.”

Carl froze at that. If Eli wanted to talk, why hadn’t he done so earlier? “What about?”

“You have something of mine,” Eli said and took a few steps closer.

Carl’s grip on the gun tightened. “It’s not yours anymore.”

“That gun still belongs to me, no matter what you think. So if you could just give it back...”

“No. Get back.”

Eli didn’t move, just looked at him with a grim look on his face. “You want to protect your sister, right? The way I want to protect Cal. I know how you feel.”

Carl didn’t reply. Eli wasn’t right. He did want to protect Judy, always would. But he didn’t see how that had to do anything with this. It wasn’t related at all to this situation.

“Now, if you just looked at this from my perspective, you’d realise that I’m in a shitty situation. I’m surrounded by strangers, people who are dangerous. And I have nothing to defend myself with. I need my gun back.”

“My family’s not going to hurt you,” Carl said. He’d meant his words, honestly, but he still could see the irony pointing his gun at Eli at the same time as saying that. “Or Cal.”

“I can’t know that,” Eli insisted. “You’re just a boy. You shouldn’t be carrying something so dangerous with you. If you give the gun to me I promise I’ll do everything in the world to protect your sister and your family against evil people. Better than you ever could.” Dark blue eyes glanced at him, asking him to say yes.

Carl shook his head. “I can’t, no.” He wished Eli hadn’t closed the door behind him, at least that way he would’ve been able to see the others and they would’ve been able to see him.

“You’ll have my word, Carl.” Eli was moving closer to the sink now, practically towering over him. “This is my gun and I _will_ have it back.”

“Back off or I’ll pull the trigger.” He tried to keep his voice even. This was not a moment to show weakness. He wasn’t scared or intimidated. If he kept telling that to himself, maybe he’d believe it.

He noticed the older boy’s expression was still dead serious, and now Eli was so close he had to look up to see it. The resistance against the barrel of the gun made him glance downwards, and he nearly pulled the trigger in shock at Eli pressing his stomach against Glock. “Then do it. I’m not afraid to die.”

Carl didn’t know if he should believe him. How could he not be afraid to die? He knew what it felt like to get shot, and he could only imagine it would hurt a lot more if it was fatal. And unless it was a shot to the head it would not instantly kill you.

Eli gripped the end of the gun and pulled it higher. Carl hated how much that move forced him to stretch up his arms. The barrel was now pressing against Eli’s chest, where his heart lay underneath the thin layer of skin. “But even if I was, I wouldn’t be scared now. Because you won’t shoot me. You don’t have the balls to shoot me. You’re just a boy. A scared little boy. That thing in your hand, it doesn’t belong there. It should be with someone who will actually use it.”

It only took him a few moments to recognise the sensation, it was familiar but hadn’t happened too often yet. But the chafing of his jeans against his sensitive skin told him that indeed, his blood was currently rushing south and he had no idea what to do to stop it. Shit. Why was this happening now of all times? When it had happened the last time he’d been in the tree with Enid, but back then he’d wanted to kiss her. Of course, kissing had been entirely out of the question as soon as he got hard. Luckily they hadn’t been standing so close that she noticed. He did not want to kiss Eli. But then why was he starting to get hard? “I am _not_ afraid to use it.” He tried to keep his voice steady, both because he wanted to sound sincere and also because there was no way Eli could notice what was happening to him right now. He’d rather shoot himself.

“Then do it. Shoot me. Prove that you’re man enough to protect your family.” Eli’s voice sounded taunting now, his bare chest moving from his breathing against the Glock.

Carl shook his head.

There was a faint, metallic sound that Carl knew just too well. It was the sound of a knife being pulled out of its sheath. And then there was cold metal against his side. He could feel it through the thin layer of the shirt he had been sleeping in. Weirdly enough that did nothing to make his body calm down. No, he could feel his trousers getting tighter every second. Carl took in a deep breath and tried to get control of himself. He knew he had to be completely white in his cheeks since all his blood was currently going travelling elsewhere. But for now, he’d just have to ignore it, which wasn’t easy.

“Now you’re being threatened. You have another reason now. What if I held the knife to your sister’s neck, what would you do then? Shoot or drop the gun.”

Carl wished he could say that he didn’t think about it. That he never entertained the idea of showing the asshole in front of him just how wrong he was. What the fuck was wrong with him? He’d used his gun before, lots of times. In fact, if Eli knew just how many walkers he’d killed with it he probably wouldn’t be standing in front of him like this. Everyone was scared of dying. This had to be a bluff. Never before had he been aware of how little the motion was to pull the trigger, how little physical energy it actually used up. Soon, even Judith’s tiny fingers would be strong enough for that.

He took in a deep breath, his brain having to remind his finger not to move, not in any circumstance. It wanted to move though. “Back off or I’ll scream.” That would wake everyone up, bring an end to this without hurting anyone.

“But everyone will see what a coward you are,” Eli replied, dark blue eyes glancing down at him. Carl thought he would be grinning. He wasn’t. “Do you really want that? Give me the gun. No one has to know. I won’t shoot your friends, I just need it to protect Cal.”

Giving in sounded like sounded like a good option, too. He wasn’t allowed to get it out or use it anyway. Who would it hurt if he gave it to Eli, aside from his pride? No one would know. Bad idea, he reminded himself. The last time Eli held that gun he’d used it to try to rob Daryl and Aaron. Who said he wouldn’t do the same to the people of Alexandria? “If I scream, people will see you threaten me with your knife,” Carl said quietly. “They’ll throw you out. Tonight. You’ll die. You will never see your brother again.” Despite the tight grip he had on the Glock he could feel it shake slightly against Eli’s bare chest. “I would love to shoot you right now. But I’m not going to. Not going to give you the gun either. I’m not afraid of calling for help. My family... they’ve seen me be vulnerable before. It would be okay. I’m not some stupid macho like you,” he said, all while keeping eye contact with Eli. His heart was racing, but he still gave him a look full of determination. “Go away or I’ll call out to the others.”

Eli didn’t budge.

“Five... four... three...” If Eli didn’t move, he really would have to call out. He tried to imagine the face of his father if he barged into the room right now, pulled out of his sleep by his son’s calls from the bathroom. He would be embarrassed, for sure. Like Eli had said, he did not want to look like a coward. Plus, they might be able to spot the raging hard-on through his jeans – a situation that had to be avoided at all cost. “Two-“

He could feel the pressure of the knife go away as Eli gave him a strange look and then took a step back, as well as the resistance against the barrel of the Glock. Carl let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.

Eli was only a figure retreating into the living room. I win, Carl told the backside of his naked torso.

The danger was over now. It was over. Hopefully Eli wouldn’t try the same again next night. He’d have to be more careful. Turing back around, Carl leaned forward, nearly jumping back at the sensation of the steel counter pressing against his hard cock. The pressure felt both uncomfortable and really good at the same time. Fuck. Why wasn’t it going away? Carefully, he let his hand move to the front of his jeans, adding just the slightest bit of pressure-

“Carl?”

The teen’s head shot up as soon as he heard his father’s voice from the doorway, quickly pulling his hand away from his crotch as if it had been burned. Was his erection visible through his clothes? A quick glance downward told him that it was hard to make out in the dark so he was probably safe.

“Sorry, dad, I was just using the toilet.” He tried to sound nonchalant.

Rick nodded. “I was about to trade watch with Daryl when I noticed you were gone. Couldn’t help but get worried.”

Carl nodded. Rick hadn’t even noticed the sight of him holding a gun. Was probably used to it so much it looked perfectly normal. “I get it. Would have come looking for you, too.” He faked a yawn and tried to discreetly put the gun into the back of his jeans. “I better get back to bed. I should sleep.”

Rick gave him an amused look. “Who are you and what have you done to my son? Why aren’t you volunteering to take watch and telling me it’s your right since you’re nearly grown-up?”

“Would you let me take watch?”

“No. Not tonight.”

“See? There’s no point in asking,” Carl said and moved towards the door. “Good night, dad.” He couldn’t wait to get out of the room, didn’t even wait for a reply when he returned to the living room. At least his erection was slowly getting smaller. Thank god a conversation with his father had that effect on him.

He sneaked a look at Eli when he passed him, but he seemed to have already fallen asleep between his brother and the wall, clutching at half of the blanket. Part of Cal had moved off the mattress, his cheek pressed against the hardwood floors. The blanket was only covering his lower half and Carl had to stifle his chuckle at the sight of him in the giant shirt. Again. No one was allowed to look this ridiculous while sleeping.

As soon as Rick came out of the bathroom Carl moved along to lie back on his mattress, afraid of being caught staring. He felt one edge dip as his father moved the blanket up to cover his shoulders. Normally he would be mortified that he was being tucked into bed like a little kid, but it was late and he was way too tired to protest. Soon he fell into a slumber full of walkers and Alexandrians and his friends. And guns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter, let me know what you think! Any feedback is very much appreciated. 
> 
> Next week, we're going to see a lot of Maggie. And, of course, a bit of Tara. I just love them. 
> 
> Preview: 
> 
> “Carl?” Tara laughed. “Are you subtly trying to ask me about erections?”
> 
> “No!” Carl exclaimed. Another pause. “Well, maybe.”
> 
> “You’re literally asking me, a lesbian, about male desires and boners?”


	3. No Forgiveness

 

When Maggie woke up she wasn’t afraid. The first thing she registered as she slowly slipped out of her dreams was the soft heaving and lowering of a strong chest underneath her cheek. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know it was Glenn. He was breathing and he was alive. She kept her eyes closed, just took in the familiar smell of him and revelled in the feeling of being safe. Apparently what had woken her up was a new arrival in the infirmary because she could make out hushed voices from the next bed.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up, Tara. Carol sent me to bring you guys breakfast.” It was Carl, Maggie recognised his voice without a doubt. No one else sounded like him. Maggie wondered if he would sound like Rick once he was older. Maybe his Georgian accent would get thicker, too.

“I don’t think you did, I was already drifting in and out of sleep,” came Tara’s reply. “I miss this. Lazy mornings, staying in bed. Sometimes I’m thankful I got injured.” She was joking, Maggie could tell.

“Didn’t have to get yourself blown up, could have just caught a cold or something.”

“I don’t think I’d stay in bed if I had only a cold.” There was the clatter of plates or glasses. “Breakfast in bed, what a gentleman.”

Carl scoffed. “Gotta thank Carol.”

For a while Maggie could hear nothing but the sounds of loud chewing and crunching. Then: “You should leave something for Maggie and Glenn.”

“Not my fault they’re still sleeping,” Tara mumbled. Maggie had to fight the desire to open her eyes and check to see if Tara was really eating all their breakfast. “God, they look so happy together.” Tara let out a sigh. “Wish I had what they have. Must feel nice not to be alone.”

“You’re not.”

“I know technically I’m not, but what those two lovebirds have, it’s different. It’s not like having a friend. It’s just... more. It’s special.”

“Did you have a boyfriend before this all started?” Carl asked.

Maggie already knew what Tara was about to say. She had never bothered to hide her sexuality. Maggie liked that about Tara. She could be so blunt and honest sometimes. “I’m not into guys. But I had a girlfriend for a while.”

There was no way to see if Carl looked surprised by that confession or not. And Maggie wasn’t about to open her eyes and interrupt their talking. Tara could really benefit from talking to people outside of GREATM. Maybe she still felt bad about what happened at the prison. “Oh,” she could hear him say. “That’s okay.”

“Good. There’s so much shit in the world, I won’t put up with homophobes, too.”

“That are... people who hate people like you?” There was a pause. “Mom told me about it, said boys could love boys and girls could love girls, but not everyone would be okay with it. When she wasn’t around Shane would make jokes about them. I didn’t understand them, not at all. Dad never laughed about them, but he didn’t tell him to shut up either.”

“I hate jokes when they are mean,” Tara said. “Though I can make jokes about me being gay.”

“How many girlfriends did you have?” Carl asked.

“I used to date a girl, but she broke up with me and told me she was dating a boy instead.” Tara sighed. “But then... I found Alisha. In this really shitty place, I actually found someone I liked. And then she died.”

“I’m sorry.” Carl’s voice was quiet. He didn’t ask her how she died. Maggie wondered if Tara would have told him that they were part of the attack on the prison. There was a big chance that, like herself, Carl had never recognised Tara as one of the governor’s people.

“I would really like a girlfriend though,” Tara said. “Hey, do you think one of them Alexandrian girls is a lesbian like me?”

Carl laughed. “I have no idea how to spot a lesbian. I didn’t even know you liked girls. But yes... obviously I don’t know what it’s like, but it would be nice.”

“Sex?” Tara’s voice was playful.

“I meant someone to be with.” Carl sighed. “Okay, maybe sex. I know everyone’s, like, obsessed with it.” There was a long pause that was only filled with the sounds of chewing. Then, Carl tentatively started talking. “How do you know if you’re attracted to someone?”

“Um...” Tara sounded taken aback. “I guess you just know. You feel drawn to them. Want to kiss them and touch them. When they’re around, you have trouble keeping a clear head.”

“What about... how your body reacts? And have you ever been... feeling strange around someone you shouldn’t feel strange around?”

Maggie wished she had opened her eyes earlier and gone out of the room. She didn’t particularly want to spy on Carl and Tara. Although now she was curious about where this was going.

“Carl?” Tara laughed. “Are you subtly trying to ask me about erections?”

“No!” Carl exclaimed. Another pause. “Well, maybe.”

“You’re literally asking me, a lesbian, about male desires and boners?”

“It just came up! And I can’t help thinking about what happened last night... plus it’s not like I can just ask Dad or Daryl! That would be the most awkward conversation ever. And you’re closest to my age... and you seem cool. So… I asked you.”

“Thanks for thinking I’m cool,” Tara said. Maggie opened her eyes just a tiny bit. She appeared to be smiling. “I don’t know anything about boners. Guess they happen when you think about sexy stuff or if you’re in a sexual situation? Being a girl is different, it’s not that obvious. But I get distracted by nice bodies all the time, I mean, people I shouldn’t ever think about, like Rosita...”

Maggie decided that she felt too awkward continuing the spying so she lifted her head Glenn’s chest. Both Carl and Tara seemed to be taken aback by her alert presence.

“How much did you hear?” Carl asked.

“Enough,” Maggie replied and grinned at him. “And I’m dying to know what happened last night.”

She could see him flush bright red. “I’m not telling you! Neither of you!”

“C’mon, Carl, how are we going to give you advise when we have no clue what’s going on,” Maggie said and looked at Tara. “Right?”

Tara nodded. “Spill your secrets. I mean, I basically admitted I’m sometimes attracted to Rosita. It’s your turn now.”

“I just... I can only tell you that... ugh.” Carl sighed. “I was close to someone... not _close_ close, but pretty close. It wasn’t a sexual situation though or anything...” Carl buried his face in his hands. “And I really want to know if this means anything or if it’s just my body being stupid.”

“Probably just your body being stupid,” another voice said. Maggie wasn’t scared by it, she never would be, but Carl looked like he almost flew off his chair next to Tara’s bedside.

“Good morning, handsome,” Maggie said and turned her head to softly kiss him good morning. If she had met Glenn before everything happened, she would have been grossed out by the morning breath. But not anymore, not when brushing your teeth had become a luxury. “How’s your shoulder this morning?”

“Not bad.” He shrugged. Maggie did notice that he pulled a face at the motion. Damn liar. “I think Carl’s problem is more important right now. Rick hasn’t had that talk with you yet, hasn’t he?”

Carl flushed. “If you mean how babies are made, then yes, we had that talk at the prison when I wanted to know why he and mom had decided to give me a sibling in the apocalypse.”

“Not what I meant. I mean, about puberty,” Glenn said.

“We haven’t really talked about that. I know some stuff from Patrick though...”

“So you know what an erection is?”

Carl nodded, looking like he either wanted to hide under the covers of one of the infirmary beds or get shot again.

“What you probably not know is that they happen all the time when you’re young. When I was your age I would get them all the time, no matter the circumstances. Sometimes I had been thinking about something sexual, sometimes I hadn’t. Got them in class all the time - that was really awkward.” Glenn grinned, which made Maggie chuckle. “You don’t need to worry about getting them. It’s completely normal. So maybe you’re attracted to the person you got close to. Maybe you’re not. What you want to do, that’s only up to you, not your body.”

“Aw, baby, that was beautiful,” Maggie cooed and kissed her husband again. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Carl pull a face.

“He’s right,” Tara said. “Hey, maybe Deanna should pull you off the run team as long as you’re injured and teach sexual education to the teens instead.”

Maggie beamed at that suggestion. Glenn gave her a dark look. “Don’t you dare mention that to her.”

She didn’t promise him anything. Tara was right, he couldn’t go on runs as long as his shoulder wasn’t alright. If it took a while to heal he might need another job. “So, Carl, who did you get _excited_ about yesterday?”

Carl shook his head and stayed quiet.

“Was it the girl who lives with Mr. and Mrs. Miller?”

“No... not last night.”

Maggie gave him a look. “But there’s something going on between you two?”

“No! She has a boyfriend. I couldn’t- but we had a moment, sort of. I nearly kissed her,” he admitted.

“Oh my god, you’re so adorable,” Maggie exclaimed and tried to ruffle his hair. Sadly he shook his head and pulled out of her reach.

He got up from his seat. “Um, the tray with the food that Tara’s left over for you guys is on the table. From Carol. And I should really- I better see what’s happening at the house. This conversation, it never leaves this room, okay?”

“Promise,” Tara said in a serious voice. Maggie agreed with her, and so did Glenn.

Right before he was out of the door Carl glanced back at Glenn. “Thanks, man. I needed to hear that. I think I’m less freaked out now.”

Once the door of the infirmary had closed behind him Maggie turned towards Glenn. “Who do you think he was talking about?”

Tara tugged at her blanket. “I don’t think it’s our business. I think he’ll tell us if he wants us to know.”

“You might be right,” Maggie said. “So let’s go back to the most important topic of today: you want a girlfriend?”

“I wasn’t really serious. I just think I’d be nice not to be alone, you know? Alisha... being with her helped me have hope in this fucked up world.”

“I’ll keep my eye out on attractive Alexandrian women,” Maggie replied and winked at her. “Or maybe tell Daryl to recruit more lesbians for you.”

Apparently Tara was already well enough to throw her pillow at her.

 

* * *

 

It was moments like these that made Maggie forget where she was, what was going on and what had happened. Joking around with her husband and Tara, it could have happened anywhere. Except she would have never known them if the world hadn’t gone to shit.

Still. If she could take everything back, take all the deaths back, make the people be alive again, for real, she would do it. It didn’t matter that she would never have met Glenn and fallen in love. He was her family now, but she would not choose him before her blood. The best thing about Glenn was that he would understand it though, wouldn’t ever be mad if she told him. Which she would never do. There were some things that were better left unsaid, especially if you already knew your answer.

It was moments like these that she both felt a flicker of happiness and missed her sister so badly it felt like she had been the one to get shot instead of Glenn.

She knew without moments like these they would have been lost ages ago.

When Denise came in to check in on her patients she held Glenn’s hand the whole time, never letting go. His fingers grasped her tightly as Denise poured some more alcohol over the wound, but it did not hurt. He would never hurt her.

“He’s going to be alright,” Denise assured them. “But no more going on runs for a while.”

“This did not happen during a run,” Maggie replied and gripped Glenn’s hand more tightly.

Denise sighed. “I’m sure Nicholas had his reasons...”

“His reasons for shooting my husband in the shoulder?” Maggie asked sharply.

The medic lowered her head as she bandaged up Glenn’s wound. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “Just saying, I’ve known Nicholas for a while, he’s a good person.”

Tara’s snort quickly turned into a cough.

“But what the patients really need is rest.” Denise looked at Maggie determinedly.

Maggie thought about protesting, insisting that she would stay with Glenn and that no one could prevent her from doing just that. Although she did not particularly like Denise, she trusted her as a medic and it was obvious both Tara and Glenn would be back to good health in no time. Plus, her husband did look exhausted.

“I will be back soon,” Maggie promised. “After I talk to Deanna and interview the boys.” She bent down to give Glenn a kiss on the mouth, letting her lips linger sweetly against his. It only felt natural to kiss Tara, too, although the girl was not lucky enough to receive a kiss on the mouth. Instead, she quickly brushed her lips against her forehead. “Get better,” Maggie ordered. “Both of you.”

 

* * *

 

Alexandria was quiet. Too quiet. There was barely anyone outside, everyone seemed to have hidden in their little shells of houses. Maggie wondered if everything would go back to normal – or what passed as normal – or if this was the calm before the storm. It sure felt like it, but she could be mistaken. For her, nothing would ever go back to normal.

On her way back to the house she ran into Sasha, but she did not smile at her – not after what they had been through last night. Instead she nodded at her, and the nod she got back told her that Sasha would be as alright as it was possible right now. Sasha would never forget her brother’s death, but maybe one day they’d be able to smile at each other again.

She didn’t even have to ask Sasha where she was heading – it was obvious that she was going to the guard tower where she had spent hours and hours during the last days. Maggie felt safe knowing that the other woman was up there, looking out for any threats. But on the other hand she worried about how Sasha was doing, especially after she’d nearly shot at Gabriel.

Maggie kept walking and neared their two houses – at the moment they were only using one of them for sleeping though, not willing to split up. There were only two people on the porch outside – one big human and a small one. The smell of Judith’s full diaper hit her nose as she walked up the porch steps, but she did not pinch her nose shut. She’d smelled much worse things. Daryl didn’t even look up. He probably knew it was her from the sound of her footsteps on the wood.

Maggie leaned against the railing and looked at them.

“That’s much better now, isn’t it, sweetheart?” Daryl finished putting the new diaper on, the old one laying discarded next to the baby, emitting the horrible smell. “Know it sucks, little asskicker, to have to lay in your own shit until one of the adults notices. Probably looking forward to the day where you ain’t gotta wear a damn diaper, aren’t ya?”

“That might take a while though.” Maggie smiled. “I feel like you’re much more talkative when you’re around her.”

Daryl gave her an annoyed look. “Well, you ain’t gotta learn how to speak. She does. Don’t want her first word to be ‘walker’.”

Maggie didn’t want to image the look on Rick’s face if that were the case. “You’re right,” she said. “You’re doing good. Hopefully we can focus a bit more on her development now that we’re no longer out there.”

Daryl just nodded in response and sat Judith down on his lap, where she promptly reached out with one tiny hand to tug at the strands of hair falling into his face. Once Maggie opened the front door, she could hear him quietly start speaking again.

 

* * *

 

The living room had transformed since they had all moved in. Before, it had looked bare and a little bit too clean. Now, there were sleeping bags, mattresses, blankets and people and their belongings in every single inch of the floor so you had to be careful where to step. Maggie liked the mess. It felt homely, sort of. Safe. Most of the wall decoration looked out of place though. Someone else had put a lot of thought into them, and from an interior design perspective she could appreciate them. But it simply wasn’t them.

Everyone was still sitting together in the cramped space of the living room slash kitchen. Maggie had a few tense nods thrown her way.

It was Carol who approached her first. “How are the patients today? Did you enjoy your breakfast?”

“They are much better. Tara’s awake and talking… I didn’t have anything to eat yet today,” Maggie said honestly.

Carol gave her a look before turning her head into the direction of the couches. “Carl?” Her voice was sharp.

“What?” came his reply.

“What did you do with-“

“It’s fine, he did deliver it, but Tara had a huge appetite,” Maggie interrupted her. “Can’t blame her. Besides, we had a very interesting conversation so it sort of slipped my mind.”

Carl shot her a dark look.

“Really? What did you talk about?” Rick asked after stepping out of the bathroom door. The ends of his wet hair had curled up. 

Carl was still looking at her. Though she couldn’t read minds, his expression clearly read ‘Don’t tell my dad a word or you’re dead!’

“Just stuff I didn’t have to chance to talk about in ages.” It was true. How long had it been since she’d last teased her sister about a crush she developed on a boy? Too long ago. Out of the corner of his eyes, she saw Carl go back to reading his comic book. “Look, Rick, I’m going to take the boys to Deanna’s to interview them with her video equipment, and also to see how she’s doing.”

“Good… good idea.”

“Unless you want to do the interviews?”

Rick shook his head. “You do it. I trust your judgement. I wouldn’t exactly be the most friendly with ‘em, not after what happened. But I wanna see the tapes.”

“Deanna is going to want to see them too. It’s her decision if they stay.”

“No, it’s not,” Rick disagreed. “They’re around my people. I let them inside this house. And they attacked one of my family.”

“Cal didn’t attack anyone-“

“But they’re the same, aren’t they? They’re brothers. They’re going to stick together. Like Daryl and Merle. Daryl is- he’s goddamn- he’s a good person. But not when he was with his brother. He was too loyal for that.”

“I see,” Maggie said. “I’ll keep that in mind. Will talk to Cal first. Somehow, chances are smaller that he’s lying, and this way I might catch Eli if he’s not telling the truth about something.”

 

* * *

 

Maggie found both boys in one of the upstairs bedrooms, the one that Rick and Carl had almost claimed for themselves – only now they were all still sleeping in the living room like a big pile of cats. At the creaking sound of opening the door, Maggie could make out Cal taking a few quick steps back while Eli moved forward, staring at her with distrusting eyes.

“Good morning,” she greeted Eli, forcing a small smile onto her face. “You must be Eli, right?”

The boy – or should she say man? – nodded. “That’s correct.”

“And you’re Cal?” She glanced behind Eli’s shoulder to get a look at the boy standing behind his brother. There seemed to be quite an age difference between the two. Cal looked like he probably wasn’t much older than Carl. With Eli, she had no idea how old he was – his appearance looked young but not the way he was staring at her.

“I am.”

“My name’s Maggie. I’m part of Rick’s group, but you didn’t see me last night because I stayed in the infirmary with my husband. Have you eaten already? I’d like to interview you, to see if you can stay here,” she told them.

“We’ve had breakfast,” Cal said quietly.

“Why the interview?” Eli asked. “It should be up to us if we want to stay or not.”

“I didn’t come up with it, but I think it’s a good idea. I’m going to film the interviews so later others can decide if you stay. If I find out-“

“If you find out what? What sort of criteria are you going by?” Eli wanted to know.

“Find out if you’ve done bad things,” Maggie replied.

Eli laughed, but there was no true humour behind it. “Haven’t we all?”

“There is still a difference between doing what you have to and turning into animals.” She knew that in some cases people from her group had nearly crossed the line a few times. It couldn’t happen again. “We’re going to Deanna’s house because that’s where we keep the video equipment.”

“Who’s Deanna?” Eli asked.

“She’s in charge here. Yesterday evening, she lost her husband and I don’t think she’s in any state to do interviews right now.”

Both boys nodded in a sort of similar way. While they did look like they could be related, it wasn’t obvious that they were brothers. The only thing that gave away the fact they arrived together was that their skin was still dirtier than the regular Alexandrian’s skin – it took more than one shower to wash away all the dirt and grime from travelling on the road for so long.

Maggie nodded at the two single beds. “While I’m not in charge of dividing up space, this room looks like it could suit the two of you if you stayed.”

Cal gave her a small smile. “They do look really comfy. Thank you.”

Maggie smiled back, happy she could cheer him up after what must have been very hard times. “Come on, Cal. You’re first.”

Cal took a few steps towards the door but Eli took his shoulder to prevent him from moving any further. “Wait. We’re not getting interviewed together?”

“No. It’s always single interviews I’m afraid. With the exception of Judith, but she’s a baby.”

“I don’t like it.”

“It’s better this way.”

“I want to come with you.”

“You should stay in the house,” Maggie insisted. “I don’t want you to wait somewhere around Deanna and her son. They’re grieving and need as much space as they can get.”

“You’re taking my brother some place I don’t know and I’m just supposed to be okay with that?!” Eli sounded offended.

“It’s not far. Still inside the walls. He’ll be safe. I promise you.” Maggie looked him in the eye. “You can count on that. There’s going to be no one to harm him, I’ll make sure of that.”

“How? You don’t even have any guns.”

“But I’ve come a long way with my knife,” Maggie replied and sighed. She hadn’t counted on Eli being so difficult about this. “It won’t take too long.”

“Fine.” Shooting Maggie a cold glare, the grip on Cal’s shoulder loosened. “If he gets hurt in any way, I’ll slit your husband’s throat in his sleep. And after you bury him, I’ll do yours.”

A cold shiver ran down Maggie’s back at the threat of violence against Glenn, but Maggie didn’t say anything and instead started walking down the stairs, Cal behind her followed by Eli who stayed with them up until the front door.

 

* * *

 

“How many walkers have you killed?” The entire way to Deanna’s house Maggie had been thinking about what to ask first. Maybe this was not the nicest question, but it seemed best to stick to something familiar.

Cal’s eyes widened. They were blue, she suddenly realised. Before, they had looked like they were brown. Maybe it was because the blue was a lot darker than Eli’s bright blue eyes.

Maggie looked at him expectantly. “It’s okay. I just want to know the truth. There is no right or wrong answer.”

“I haven’t killed any walkers,” Cal finally replied.

Maggie’s first instinct was not to believe him, even though he didn’t look like he was lying when he said it. “You haven’t? Not a single one?”

“No.”

“Then… how?”

“How am I still here?” Cal shrugged. “I’m just lucky. And I have Eli. He’s killed lots of walkers.”

“But don’t you help him?” Maggie wanted to know, still torn between calling out his lie and accepting this weird truth.

“Not with killing,” Cal said. “We don’t have to kill them. If you kill even just one, that makes noise and will attract others. Often it’s easier to just hide.”

“So that’s what you did? You hid?”

Cal nodded. “We always kept a container with walker blood. It was gross. But whenever Eli had to leave me alone I had to put it on my face and wait for him to come back without moving a single finger.”

“That is smart,” Maggie admitted. “But it’s still hard to believe you were never in a situation where you killed at least one.”

“I was around 11 when everything went to shit,” Cal said. “Eli didn’t want me to kill anything. I didn’t matter that they were already dead.”

“But you’re older now.”

“Not to him.”

“Does that bother you?”

Cal shook his head. “No. He’s- he’s been taking care of me all this time. I can understand him.”

Maggie looked at him. Again, she wasn’t sure if he was entirely truthful. “Alright,” she said. “I guess this means you haven’t killed any people either?”

Cal shook his head. “I haven’t. I’m not like that. I don’t want to be like that.” He looked up at Maggie. “Have you?”

Maggie nodded. She wished she didn’t have to talk about it. This topic always brought back memories she tried to forget. “I have. There was another group, and they kidnapped my husband and me. Later, they attacked the prison. I killed a few of their men. I had to, but I’m not proud of it.”

“The prison?” Cal sounded intrigued.

“We found a prison for a while. It was safe. Secure. At least for a while…”

“What happened?”

Maggie sighed. “I’d rather not talk about it right now.”

“Oh, sorry…”

She gave him a tight smile. “It’s okay. One of us will tell you the story eventually if you stay. But now is not the time. This is about you.”

Cal leaned back a little against Deanna’s armchair. “Okay.”

“Where are you from, Cal?”

“Maine. The countryside. Eli is really good with animals. He helps- helped out in a stable.”

That skill could come in handy one day if they found a horse that was still alive. “And you went to school near where you lived?”

“Sometimes.” Cal shrugged. “Or I would work on the farm as well.”

“Didn’t you like going to school?”

“No, it wasn’t really my thing. Got suspended for skipping, which is ridiculous when you consider that they’re basically punishing me with what I got in trouble for in the first place.”

“We do have a very small school here,” Maggie told him quietly. “If you stay, you’re welcome to go there. It’s only for a couple of hours in the afternoon.”

“I will if I have to,” Cal replied. “If Eli wants me to.”

Maggie nodded. “I think you might like it. Tell me more, did you live with your parents?”

Cal shook his head. “No. It was just Eli and me. And the other people, of course.”

“Other people?”

“The other Romani people we lived close to. Our people.”

“So you are Romani?”

“Yes.”

Maggie sighed. “Cal. Can I ask what happened to your parents?” She was trying to tread carefully. “You mentioned you didn’t live with them when all this went down…”

Cal averted his gaze. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

They were dead, then. If not victims of walker attacks, maybe they left Cal and Eli as orphans long before the dead started coming back to life.

“It’s okay,” Maggie said softly. “I lost both my parents. It’s not easy to talk about… so often I just don’t. And in all the years, I’ve gained new family and lost some of them, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Cal said and looked back up. “Sorry about all those people.”

“Did you ever join a bigger group?”

Cal shook his head. “It was just my brother and me. We tried to find the others but they were long gone when we went back to our site. So we started looking for places to stay. We were never really travellers before, not in a long time, but that’s what we became.”

“How did you survive for so long?” Maggie asked. “If it was just the two of you and you didn’t even kill any walkers, you just hid.”

“I never said Eli didn’t kill any. And we never travelled without a goal in mind,” Cal told her. “We didn’t just scavenge for food. We scavenged for information. Maps of the region, records that would show warehouses or any other place that would contain large amounts of food. Never supermarkets though. They’re always looted and full of walkers. You need to look for the hidden places.”

“That’s smart,” Maggie commented. “Is that what you were doing when you travelled here?”

Cal nodded. “We were looking for an IKEA that I found in a catalogue in someone’s house. It was quite a bit away, but our supplies were going low, so we had to move again. We underestimated how hard it would be to find gas around here. At one point, there was nothing left. No food, no gas, nothing. We walked. I was starving. Eli told me to wait in the car, told me that he would find something.”

“Did you stay in the car?”

“At first, but… I got scared he wouldn’t come back. I don’t know why. I just had a feeling. He hadn’t eaten in a long time because he gave all the last rations to me. I thought he would just collapse on his mission. So I went out and looked for him… to find him threaten your people.”

Maggie nodded and looked at him, trying not to let any pity show in her gaze. She did not want to pity him. Maybe it wasn’t even pity. But it felt horrible hearing Cal tell her about how he and his brother had been starving on the road. While no one from their group looked well-nourished, Cal looked especially skinny. The shirt he was wearing, the green and grey one she’d seen Carl wear lots of times when they’d been travelling from Terminus to Alexandria, was a little big on him, but not too much.

“I’m very sorry that happened to you,” Maggie said quietly. “From now on, you should have enough to eat.”

“It was okay before, when we were still lucky. We just got really unlucky at the end.”

“Maybe you did get lucky though.” Maggie gave him a tentative smile. To her surprise he returned it. “It’s not up to me, but I think you should stay. You deserve this.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, you do, Cal.”

“I don’t know if they’ll let us stay. We’re not good people.”

“From what you’ve told me, you’ve done nothing wrong,” Maggie replied. Was there something he was not telling her? “Unless you’re lying to me?”

Cal shook his head. “I’ve never killed anyone or anything.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about. I’m going to talk to Eli next. Is there anything you want to tell me about him before I start?”

“He’s killed walkers,” Cal said.

“That is okay. Everyone has.” Maggie reached towards the camera to turn it off.

“Not everyone. Not me.”

 

* * *

 

She wanted to stab him. In the face. She never would. Not with an innocent child standing right next to her. It didn’t stop her from imagining it, though. The feeling surprised her. She’d always thought of herself as a peaceful person, making her dad proud by following what he’d taught her. Love changed that, she thought. Love didn’t make you weak. It made you strong. Strong enough to change who you were to protect those you loved.

“Maggie, are you alright?” Cal whispered. He was several inches shorter than her, she noted.

Maggie didn’t answer him. She knew she should reassure him that everything was okay, not to worry.

“Nicholas.”

The man leaning in his doorway looked back at him. She glanced at his eyes, trying to see what he felt looking at the woman whose husband he’d tried to kill only yesterday. The only emotions she could make out before he averted his eyes were surprised, mixed with a bit of shame.

“Did you come to talk about yesterday?” Nicholas asked. “I don’t know what happened, honestly-“

“I don’t want to hear any of that right now,” Maggie replied, her voice tight. She forced herself to keep going. “You’re a liar, and you tried to take the best thing that’s ever happened to me from me. But I did not come to talk about that.”

Nicholas seemed to study a spot right behind her shoulder. She wished he had enough courage to look her in the eye.

“Cal needs new clothes, he only came with the ones he was wearing and Carl doesn’t own enough for the both of them,” she explained. “I know that it was Ron who donated some of his to Carl, and so I’m asking you to give Cal here a few of your son’s clothes. I think they should fit him.”

“I don’t know, he looks a bit skinny.”

“He’s not been safe inside these walls like you have, with enough food to keep going. He’s going to gain weight soon enough, but for now I think Mikey’s clothes should be a close enough fit.”

Right now Cal was wearing the clothes that were a bit tight on Carl but that hadn’t been thrown out yet. She was glad Carl was eager to help out the newcomers. It would do both boys good to have someone their age around who hadn’t spent all this time inside the walls of Alexandria, not to mention that both Mikey and Ron were a few years older, most likely.

Nicholas nodded. “Okay. Please, come in. Mikey’s upstairs.”

As they followed Nicholas up the stairs, Maggie leaned in closer to whisper in Cal’s ear. “I’m sorry for speaking for you like that. I always hated it when adults did that in front of me.”

Cal shrugged. “It’s okay. What’s going on between you two?”

“Later,” Maggie mouthed as they reached the top of the stairs.

After knocking on his son’s door Nicholas led them into a spacious bedroom, walls painted blue. Maggie’s gaze landed on Cal, who seemed a bit taken aback by the clean (to a teenager’s standard) room with said teenager sitting on a bed by the window.

“Oh, hey.” Mikey closed the book he was holding, brown eyes moving across the room to stare at Cal, his thick eyebrows furrowed. “Who’s this?”

“Cal Bray,” Cal replied. “And you’re Mikey, right?”

Mikey nodded. “How did you get here?”

“Some of you people found me and my brother and got us back here yesterday evening,” Cal explained.

“Cal doesn’t really own any clothes, so we wanted to know if you could lend him some of yours, please?” Maggie wanted to know.

“Yeah, sure, no problem. How old are you, man?”

“Fourteen, I guess. And you?”

“I’m fifteen.” Maggie watched Mikey get up from his bed to open his wardrobe and sort through his clothes. “Come here, I don’t know what you like to wear and what would fit you best.”

Maggie watched the two boys selected different items of clothes and internally sighed of relief. Cal and Mikey were getting along just fine. Apparently, Mikey wasn’t that much of his father’s son. Instead of reacting with hostility towards the stranger, he was sharing his own clothes with a boy he didn’t even know.

After a while, when Cal was carrying a good amount of clothes in his arms, Maggie informed them that they should get back. Before they could leave Mikey turned towards Cal and gave him a smile. “Good to have you here, we really need more people my age. If you want, we could hang out tomorrow. I could show you around or we could play videogames. I bet you haven’t done that in a while.”

“I’ve actually never played videogames before,” Cal admitted.

“That’s okay. You can learn.”

 

* * *

 

They were on their way back to their own houses when Cal broke the silence. “Can you tell me now what happened between you and Mikey’s father?”

Maggie was momentarily taken aback. There was no reason Cal shouldn’t know the story. He would find out anyway. But still, she was reluctant to talk about it. She just wanted to forget about it for now. Glenn was safe. That was the only thing that counted. “He lured out Glenn and tried to kill him. He didn’t go through with it, but they beat each other up pretty badly and Nicholas shot Glenn in the shoulder.”

“Is Glenn your boyfriend?”

Maggie nodded. “He is, but he is also so much more than that. I wouldn’t be here without him. I never would have made it this far. That’s why I will never be able to forgive Nicholas, no matter how much he redeems himself. I do believe in second chances, don’t get me wrong. Forgiveness is important. If he had done this to me, maybe I would have been able to forgive him. But this is about Glenn. So I just can’t.” Maggie knew she was talking a lot, but the words were just there, she had to let them out.

“Is anyone asking you to forgive him?”

“No, I don’t think anyone is. They’re all angry. I should be honest with you. The relations between our group and the Alexandrian’s are strained right now after everything that has happened. You’re going to find out a lot more about it if you stay.”

Cal nodded. “I want to learn more about it.” He held Mikey’s clothes tightly against his chest as he walked up to the front door of the house.

Maggie sat down on the porch. “Can you tell your brother I want to do his interview now, please?”

“Yes, sure.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said. “You’ve done great. I really hope you’re going to stay. I know it’s not up to me, but if Deanna says no, I’ll talk to her.”

“Me too,” Cal said quietly as he opened the door. “Thanks for the clothes, Maggie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, if you have any thoughts about this, no matter how small, please share them with me! I'm not looking for praise, just general opinions about what you've just read. Just a few words would be lovely :)
> 
> Stay tuned for a Carl-centric chapter after this!


	4. Not Today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christmas hiatus is over! The next chapters are already written, I just need to edit and upload them.

 

Carl couldn’t remember who he had dreamed about. They had been so close – he’d seen a face in the dream, but now it was gone. He could barely remember anything, which was strange as he didn’t have dreams like this often. He could remember smooth skin, running his palms over it, someone else gripping his shoulders. Then, pressing them both down against the cold and wet leaves of the forest ground. The only things left from his dream were a fleeting memory of _want_ and a straining pressure in his pants.

He opened his eyes, gazing up at the furniture in the living room of House 1. Shit. So much for privacy. At least it seemed like his father had let him sleep in, so there wasn’t anyone else still in bed. He’d gone to sleep quite late, teaching Cal how to play poker, and then when everyone had gone to bed he had sneaked his flashlight underneath the covers to continue reading his comic.

His whole mouth felt fuzzy and dry, so he pushed back the blanket and made his way towards the kitchen area to get himself a glass of water. Michonne and Sasha were quietly talking at the breakfast bar. The former gave him a bright smile when he sat down next to her. “Did you have sweet dreams?”

Carl blushed. She couldn’t know what he had dreamed about. She wasn’t psychic. Or was she? Sometimes he had a feeling that she knew everything. Or maybe he’d made a sound in his sleep? That would be mortifying. Though the look she gave him was warm and caring, with no hints of teasing, so her question had probably been innocent. “I slept okay. Morning, Michonne… Sasha.” He took a sip of his water. The other woman just nodded at him. Sometimes he had the feeling that she wasn’t even there, instead trapped somewhere in her own thoughts.

Carl continued sipping at his water. He’d just finished the whole glass when the front door opened and Cal stepped in. He was no longer wearing the long sleeved shirt that he let him borrow. The green colour had suited him, although the grey and white striped T-shirt he was wearing now wasn’t too bad either. He plopped down on the free chair of the breakfast bar. “Good morning. Your dad told me to wake you up... But I see that you’re already up. They have pancakes in the other house, you should have some.”

Carl nodded. “Morning. Were they good?”

“I’ve never tasted anything better,” Cal told him. “But I think I had too many because I got sick. Poor Maggie, she went to check on me but then she was sick, too. I think some people just can’t watch other people be sick without being affected.”

“I never knew Maggie was one of those people,” Michonne commented.

“Anyway, I’m really sorry for wasting the food,” Cal said.

Carl shrugged. He could understand Cal. When he was younger, he’d had so much cake at a friend’s birthday party that he’d been sick all over the living room floor. His mum had made a big fuss when she’d picked him up, telling him that he shouldn’t have had so much and that you couldn’t just vomit in other people’s living rooms. He hadn’t been allowed to watch TV all week.

“After breakfast, we should-“ Carl started but was interrupted by Cal’s brother exiting the downstairs bathroom. He couldn’t help but stare at Eli’s bare chest, much broader than his own. It felt weird. He’d seen most of the men of his group shirtless, but Eli was a stranger and also so much younger than them. He briefly wondered what Cal looked like without a shirt on.

Cal gave his brother a beaming smile. Carl’s hand moved to the back of his belt to feel if his gun was still there. It was.

“When do we find out if we can stay?” Cal wanted to know.

Eli sighed. “I don’t know. Don’t ask me.” Carl watched his naked back as he prepared coffee. What had happened the other night felt so unreal. He couldn’t believe that he’d pointed his gun at Eli while the older boy had asked him to go ahead and either shoot him or hand over the gun.

Carl got off his seat and moved next to Eli, standing on his tiptoes to reach the top shelf where they kept the mugs. “I want a coffee, too,” he said. He didn’t like coffee. Setting the mugs down on the counter, he leaned in so close that the others wouldn’t be able to make out his words. “I’m keeping the gun. You think I’m too young to use it? Watch me. I can protect my family better than you ever will be able to protect yours. I can protect Cal, too, if you want me to. Just trust me.” When he sat back down at his chair, a mug of coffee in front of him, he could feel Eli’s eyes on him, full of hatred.

 

* * *

 

Later, in the shower, it didn’t take long for his thoughts to return to the fragments of his dream. It wasn’t so much the pictures of it as the general feeling of desperate arousal. It didn’t take longer than a few moments for him to get hard while he was washing himself. After several more moments of debating, he finally decided to take care of his problem. The first thought that came into his mind was the image of a strong, muscular chest, but he decided to ban that picture from his mind and instead focus on the only real sexual experience he had had – being stuck in the hollow tree with Enid. There was no doubt of that fact that he had been very turned on in that situation, but in the end, when it was nearly over, his mind just drifted back to the tiny images left from his dream. Mixed with the memory of what he had felt during the dream, it was enough to send him over the edge.

He stayed in the shower for a while, washing all evidence of his activities down the drain. His body felt like it was shaking. This was the first time he’d ever touched himself like this. He knew other boys his age did this, had heard Patrick joke about it, but he’d never really thought of this topic for himself. He wondered if any of the other teenage boys in Alexandria got themselves off, and how often, or if Enid did. Though she had a boyfriend. Did she and Ron have sex? Shaking his head, he left the shower to dry himself off and then brush his teeth.

 

* * *

 

He felt strange walking out of the bathroom, partially giddy and partially guilty for what he’done. Nobody knew, right? There was no physical evidence left and he’d been careful to be quiet. He made his way through the empty living room to get to the other house for breakfast. Nearly everyone was there, talking loudly, but Carl stuffed his mouth with pancakes instead. Like Cal had promised, they were delicious.

Glenn had finally made it out of the infirmary, sitting on the sofa with Maggie, legs touching. Maggie looked a little pale. Carl wondered if she was all right after Cal made her vomit. Thinking of the younger boy, he looked around to spot him, but he was nowhere to be found. Even Eli was there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He wasn’t talking to anyone, but at least he’d managed to put on a shirt, even if it was the bloodstained shirt he’d worn when he arrived. “Dad, where did Cal go?” Carl wanted to know.

“Mikey came by, asking him to hang out. You should go join them.”

The idea didn’t sound too bad. Mikey was a nice guy, and he really wanted to get to know Cal better. Cal had been outside, like Enid. He knew what life was like now. “Okay, I’ll go.”

Rick lowered his voice. “Listen to me. You keep your gun hidden. No showing it around to the other kids.” Carl was almost insulted that his father would think he would do such a stupid thing, but he just nodded. “Nicholas is a bad person, but I don’t think he would hurt any of you kids. Still, if you feel like you need to, you do what you have to do.”

Carl shook his head and got up, putting his used dishes into the sink. “I’m not going to shoot Mikey’s father. Bye, dad.”

 

* * *

 

It turned out that he didn’t even have to worry about spending time around Nicholas because Mikey wasn’t home when Carl knocked on his door. Nicholas informed him that the boys had gone to Ron’s house to try and cheer him up after what had happened. Carl felt uncomfortable walking back and approaching the Anderson house. Where did they keep Ron’s father? Would they bury him in Alexandria? Would they burn him like they did with walkers? He shouldn’t think about that. Hearing Mikey’s and Cal’s voices from an open window, he tried to focus on that as he knocked on the door.

It was Ron who opened the front door. His expression was blank. “What do you want, Carl?”

“Um, I heard that Mikey and Cal went to hang out with you...”

“So?” Ron’s voice sounded like ice.

Carl fidgeted. “So I was wondering if I could join.”

“No,” Ron simply said. “You can’t join us.”

Carl had never felt so awkward in his life. What was he supposed to say to that? Should he just leave? “I’m really sorry about your dad,” he said quietly. It was only half a lie.

“I don’t care.”

Behind Ron’s he could see Enid, Cal and Mikey walk down the stairs. “Who is it?” Enid asked. Carl felt relief wash over him. He wasn’t alone against Ron anymore. Enid would see what a dick Ron was right now, and Cal surely would insist that Ron wasn’t fair.

“Someone who is not joining us,” Ron said and glared at Carl. “Someone whose ugly face is not welcome in this house.”

“Ron...” Carl bit his lip. He felt awful. Glancing at the others behind Ron, they looked uncomfortable – except for Enid who once again looked like she didn’t care at all. About anything. Why didn’t Cal say anything? Or Enid or Mikey?

“Fuck off.” With those final words Ron slammed the door shut in front of his face.

Carl kept standing in front of the house, staring at the wooden door. Sure, he had expected Ron to act differently now that his dad was dead. Be sad, maybe. Quieter. Even a little angry. He just hadn’t expected that he would want nothing to do with him anymore. They were friends. It made no sense for Ron to be acting like this. He didn’t do anything to give Ron a true reason to hate him. He didn’t tell his dad to kill Pete.

He could hear Cal’s voice again coming from a window. Why did everybody just go along with what Ron said? Carl took a few steps back from the house, staring up at the window. His eyes followed the movements of a person in Ron’s bedroom – Cal, he could make out. Enid followed behind him a few seconds later.

Carl balled his hands into fists and stumbled back to his own place. He clearly wasn’t welcome with the others anymore.

 

* * *

 

“Carl?” Rick knocked once, didn’t wait for a reply, and stepped into the bedroom. “I thought you were at Mikey’s place with Cal. But Carol said that she saw you come back because you were sick. What’s wrong?”

Carl lifted his head from the mattress. “Nothing, dad. I just felt a little sick, that’s all.” He could already see the concern form in his dad’s face. Great. That was the last thing he’d wanted when he lied to Carol about why he was back so early, without Cal.

Rick settled down on the edge of the bed, one hand gently running over his forehead. “You don’t feel too warm,” he commented, before carefully stroking through his son’s hair. Normally, Carl would have protested, but he didn’t feel like rejecting the only comfort he could get right now.

“Yeah, I don’t have a fever or anything. I just didn’t feel too great. Must have been the pancakes, like for Cal.” Speaking of the other boy made him think of the confrontation with Ron, and he could feel the embarrassment come back. He turned his head the other direction. “I’m fine now.” He would be, as long as he could stay in the upstairs bedroom and avoid the other teenagers.

Rick sighed. “That’s good to hear. After I talked to Carol, I got worried about you. Ever since that virus back at the prison… it’s become clear that this world is so much more dangerous. I can’t just have the nearest doctor have a look at you or Judy. And she didn’t even get any of her vaccinations…”

“She’ll be okay without them,” Carl said quietly. “There was a boy in my class, his parents wouldn’t let him get any shots. And he was fine.”

“Because back then, everybody got their shots and that kept the ones without them safe,” Rick replied.

He looked like he might say something else when he was interrupted by a knock on the door and Maggie put her head through the crack of the door. “Dinner’s ready, you two.”

Rick nodded and turned to leave. Carl reluctantly got up from the bed, following him down the stairs. The living room was empty, of course. They were always eating in the other house.

 “Carl, I want you to go get Cal,” Rick said.

“Why?” If there was one thing Carl really could go without it would be facing Ron again today.

“You’ve heard Maggie. Dinner’s ready.”

“He’ll be back without me getting him,” Carl said, biting his lip. “I don’t want to go get him when he might already be in the other house.”

“He wasn’t when I left a couple of moments ago,” Maggie said helpfully. Or not at all helpful in Carl’s opinion. Now he had to come up with another excuse.

“Can’t Eli get him?”

“I don’t want Eli to meet Nicholas, at least not today,” Rick replied.

“They’re at Ron’s,” Carl mumbled quietly.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Carl quickly said. _Please_ , he thought. _I don’t want to see Ron again. I can’t see Ron again. Not today._

Rick sighed. “Were you lying to me when you said you were alright?”

“No!” Carl looked up at his father, praying he couldn’t tell he was lying. Or wasn’t he? Physically, he was fine. Just humiliated. There was no way out of this, no other excuse. He could make it quick. Maybe it would be Jessie who opened the door, and then he could just ask her to get Cal. “Fine, I’ll go, dad.” Out of impulse, he stepped forward, wrapping his arms around his father. After a few seconds, he could feel him hug him back. Carl hated how weak he was right now. Before, when he was younger, there had been no question when his parents had offered comfort. And even now, he often hugged his dad after near-death situations, which sadly were just too common. But he didn’t have a reason to initiate a hug now, except that he felt that he needed the comfort. Which was stupid. Still, he held onto his dad tightly and took in the reassurance and comfort and for a moment, everything was okay again.

When he let go, he could see Maggie watch them with a fond smile. Carl quickly made his way out of the house, but his speed slowed down the closer he got to the Anderson house. If phones were still working, he could have texted Cal to come eat dinner. But of course, they didn’t. He swore at whoever decided to put Ron’s house so close to their own, because no matter how slow he walked, it was still not enough to draw out the event of meeting Ron for a second time today.

Why was he being such a pussy? Carl shook his head and marched up to the front door of the Anderson residence, knocking loudly. He still wished Jessie would open the door.

“What are you doing here again?” Ron’s asked, hostile, after opening the door.

Of course, luck was not on his side today. “I just want to get Cal,” Carl said.

“We’re playing video games,” Ron announced. A small grin formed on his face. “And we’re kind of in the middle of it, so you can go.”

Carl hated him. He hated him so much right now. “I’m supposed to get him because dinner’s ready.” He forced his voice to be steady.

“I think he rather likes it here, so I’m sure mum will let him eat dinner here,” Ron replied.

Carl knew he could’ve left now and come back to tell Rick that Cal was having dinner with the Andersons. He didn’t know what made him push past Ron inside the house, raising his voice. “Cal?”

Ron pushed his shoulder. “Get. Out.”

“No! Cal!” Carl shouted. “Dinner’s ready at ours!”

It didn’t take long for Cal to shout back “Okay, I’m coming!” and for him and Enid and Mikey to appear in the doorframe of the living room.  

Ron pushed Carl again. “I said I don’t want you in my house! You only cause trouble. You and your group. Your dad’s a fucking murderer, did you know that?”

“Yeah, and so am I!” Carl couldn’t help but reply. “I’ve killed someone not much older than you, in fact. Because I had to. Just as my dad had to kill your dad. It had to be done.”

He glanced behind Ron’s shoulder at the others. Mikey and Cal looked at him in shock. Enid didn’t.

When he looked back at Ron the other boy looked murderous. “Don’t talk about my dad,” he said in a tense voice. “You don’t get to talk about him that way. He was- he was my dad and he didn’t deserve to die.”

“Oh, but he did,” Carl said. He was going to tell Ron the truth. Now and then. “Look, I was going to pretend to be sorry. Cause it must have been hard to lose him. But the fact is, when I heard about what happened, I didn’t care. Because he did deserve it. He killed Reg. Reg didn’t do anything!” He took a few steps towards Ron, who didn’t back away from him. “And he attacked my dad. Do you know what he also did? He hurt your mum. Dad told me. How can you defend a man like that? I know men like him. We kill them. Because if we don’t, they just hurt more and more people.” His right hand moved to the back of his belt, feeling if the gun was still there. It was.

“Shut up. He didn’t-”

“When dad told me that your father was dead I was _happy_ -“

The next thing Carl registered was a sharp pain in the region of his nose and his body landing on the hardwood floor of the Anderson living room. He could feel his eyes water, and so he pressed them shut as he held his hand to his nose. When he opened them again, he could see that there was blood on his fingers.

Ron was still standing, looking down at him, and his look of pure hatred shifted to contentment.

“Ron, what the fuck?” Mickey exclaimed at the same time as Cal stumbled forward to crouch next to Carl. “Are you okay?”

Carl, who had been trying to stop the blood gushing out of his nose with his hands, turned towards Cal. All of the sudden, he felt an inexplicable surge of anger at the other boy, and he pushed him with as much force as he could. Since Cal had already been kneeling, the push didn’t do much, only made him land backwards on his ass. He tried to get up and looked at Carl. He looked hurt, Carl decided. Good. He was still too angry to feel sorry.

Enid leaned against the wall, looking at the boys with no expression that Carl could translate. He gave her a bitter look before getting up to his feet. Part of him wanted to punch Ron right back, but he’d never been in a fight and the other boy was two years older. Wordlessly, he turned around, slamming the front door behind him.

“Carl! Wait!” It was Cal. Which wasn’t that surprising since the chances of either Enid or Ron following him were slim to none.

“Fuck off.” Carl marched back towards the house. The house. Shit. How was he supposed to keep this from the others?

Cal took hold of his arm. “You’re bleeding. Let me have a look at-“

Carl shook him off. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

Suddenly, the other boy appeared in front of him, dark blue eyes look at him with… was that pity? Carl hadn’t thought it was possible to grow angrier, but he did. He stopped. “Why don’t you go check on Ron?”

“Ron will be fine. He isn’t the one who was punched…”

Carl rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I was. But why would you care? I mean, he’s your new best friend, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he and I are friends, but so are we!”

Carl shook his head. “We’re not friends, Cal. It was pretty obvious earlier that I’m not your friend. But that’s okay. I don’t want you as my friend anyway. Go to dinner or go back to Ron.”

He could see Cal frown. “I had no idea what was going on between you two. I still don’t, but what you said to him gave me a slight clue. That wasn’t nice.”

Carl sighed. What Ron had said before, at his first visit, that hadn’t been very nice. But it had to be expected. He didn’t expect Cal to take his side though. “Go away.” He pushed past the teenager, whose shirt had bloodstains on his shoulder from when Carl had pushed him with his bloodstained hands. He headed towards House 1, avoiding everyone having dinner in the other house. He looked back at Cal standing between the two houses. Was he going to tell anyone about this? Shit. “Don’t say anything to anybody,” he threatened before slamming the front door shut behind him.

 

* * *

 

Carl was pressing a bunch of toilet paper against his nose to stop the blood flow when he heard the door open again. Peering out of the downstairs bathroom, he saw Maggie enter, a worried expression on her face. Behind her followed Cal. Carl sighed, debated locking the door but then decided against it. “I told you to keep quiet,” he complained and gave the other teen a dark look.

Cal shrugged. “I never said I was going to listen to you. You’re not my brother.”

Clearly he wasn’t Eli. Eli probably would have punched Ron right back. Carl desperately tried to not think about how pathetic he’d been, running away like that.

“I’m glad Cal told me about what was going on.” Maggie moved forward and gently placed one hand against his jaw to get a better look at the injury. “Thank you.” She turned her head and smiled faintly at Cal, the traitor.

“I couldn’t just leave you alone like that,” Cal explained.

Carl ignored him while Maggie inspected his nose, carefully touching it with her finger. It still throbbed painfully, and so he winced at the contact.

“Too early to say if it’s broken. And I’m no expert on this, you should probably show this to Denise as soon as possible. It’s already starting to swell.” Carl nodded, tasting blood as it started trailing down from his nose to his lips. Maggie instructed him to sit up at the counter as she grabbed a tissue. “Press this against your nose,” she told him. “Cal, do you know where we keep supplies?”

“I don’t, sorry.”

Maggie nodded. “Okay, then I’m going to get some ice from the freezer.” Carl could feel the fleeting, comforting touch of her hand on his shoulder before she was gone.

After she left the two teenagers sat in an awkward silence. That was until Cal had to break it after a while. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything when Ron was being a dick.”

Carl just sighed and inspected the tissue, which had turned from dirty white to red.

It didn’t take long for Maggie to return. She pressed a bag of frozen peas against his nose. “I’m going to talk to Jessie later.”

“No,” Carl protested, moving his head away from her.

Maggie sighed and continued cooling his nose. “Ron can’t get away with punching other kids, and the only person who can really punish him or talk to him is his mum.”

“Maggie, I’ll take care of it,” Carl pleaded. “It’s fine. I kind of- I said something really mean to him so I provoked him. It was my fault.”

Frowning, Maggie glanced at him. “No. It was not. I don’t care what you said to him. He shouldn’t have punched you. I don’t want Rick to handle this. He’s too involved with that family.”

Carl nodded. “He is. Dad would probably kill Ron…” He wasn’t being completely serious, though he had no desire to find out what his dad would do if he knew.

“Carl…”

“I’ll just say you were playing soccer and the ball accidentally hit me in the face. You’ll back me up, right, Cal?” He turned his head towards Cal expectantly, who nodded. Good.

The bleeding stopped, so Carl discarded the tissue and hopped off the counter, taking the bag of peas from Maggie. “Can I sleep upstairs today?”

 

* * *

 

It turned out that yes, he could, since no one else was using that bedroom anyway and after Rick had heard from his accident he was determined to have his son be as comfortable as possible. Thankfully he didn’t have to see Denise today after promising that he would go to the infirmary the next day instead. Now he was staring up at the ceiling, still a little angry and bored out of his mind. His mind was too restless to fall asleep, and he had to admit he still felt the punch from Ron. It hurt quite a bit. Maybe Ron had learned how to punch by being punched, Carl thought. Had Pete hurt his sons, too? That was very likely. He remembered Sophia crying one evening, when they’d both sneaked away from the camp far enough for the adults not to hear them. After insisting she tell him what was wrong, she finally revealed that it was her father she was scared of. He remembered seeing a dark blue bruise another time, when she had changed out of her shirt. From that moment on, he hadn’t been able to look at Ed without a shiver running down his spine.

The door opened so quietly he nearly missed the small but curvy figure slip inside. Enid said nothing as she sat down on the foot of his bed, just stared at him with her big eyes.

Carl quickly sat up. “What are you doing here?” His question came out as curious rather than accusatory.

Enid threw something into his lap. Upon further inspection he recognised it as a chocolate bar. “Michonne told me to give this to you.”

“She could’ve given it to me myself. That’s not why you’re here.”

Enid shrugged. “I also wanted to tell you to get your head out of your ass.”

Carl opened his mouth, then closed it again. He thought nothing Enid said could shock him anymore. Clearly he’d been wrong. “What?”

“You take Ron telling you to fuck off personally. Don’t you get that it’s not about you? It could have been anyone. If Cal were Rick’s son, Ron would have said those things to him, not to you.”

“Thanks, Enid, I’m fine. How are you?”

She ignored him. “His dad died. Yes, he was an asshole, but give him a bit of time to get over it before you try to force yourself back into his life.”

Carl stared up at her, watched her cross her jean-clad legs on the bed. “He was my friend,” he started. “He shouldn’t have said-“

“Boo-hoo, life’s a bitch,” Enid said. “Seriously, get over it. Leave him alone for a bit.”

“I get that he’s your boyfriend,” Carl said, “but I don’t understand what you see in him.”

“He can throw a good punch.”

Carl crossed his arms in front of his chest. She didn’t look like she was sorry at all. “And of course you’d take his side.”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side. I think you boys are stupid.”

Carl shook his head. “You took his side today.” Why did she keep denying that she did?

“Yes, because it would help him so much if his girlfriend abandoned him just because he was a bit mean to the kid whose father killed his father the day after yesterday,” she replied and stared at him with a blank expression on her face. “Me staying out of it wasn’t personal, Carl. I don’t hate you for what Rick did. I don’t even hate Rick for it. I’m also happy that Pete died. It’s just a pity that it was so quick.” With those words she got up from the bed and made her way towards the door.

Carl stared at her back, speechless, before she turned around again. “Sleep well. And learn how to punch back, sport.”


	5. Town Meeting

 

“No, you’re staying here, and that’s final.” Rick glanced at his son who was eating cereal with water. Carl’s nose was now visibly bruised from the accident with the ball yesterday.

“It’s just a town meeting,” Carl replied. “What could happen? I’ve been in more dangerous situations.”

“At the last one two people died,” Rick pointed out.

“Not going to happen again,” Carl said. “Cal is going and he’s younger than me. That’s not fair.”

“Cal should be there when we decide if he gets to stay.” Rick glanced over to the side of the room where the teenager was sitting with his brother. He looked worried. Maggie was quietly speaking to him, her husband behind her on the sofa, massaging her neck. “And I need you to look after Judy, keep her safe in the house.”

Carl glanced at his sister, who was making happy little sounds from her father’s lap, applesauce smeared everywhere around her mouth. There was even a little bit on her chin. “We can keep her safe at the meeting. Or someone else could look after her.”

“No.”

Rick could see the frustration in his son’s face. “I’m not just some damn convenient babysitter!”

“Carl…”

“Rick,” he could hear Michonne’s soft voice pop up behind them. “Let him come. You’re being paranoid after the last meeting.”

“Yeah, dad, I will be safe,” Carl said, got up and reached to take Judith. Rick let go of his daughter as soon as Carl had a steady hold on her. “Even from stray soccer balls.”

Rick sighed. He didn’t like Judith being at the meeting, but he could sense that there was something angering his son and he did not want him to blow up now. “Fine.” He watched Carl smile triumphantly, cooing to Judith about bath time as he carried her up the stairs. “Do you think Deanna will be okay enough to hold a meeting today?” he asked Michonne. He had his doubts about that. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been absolutely heartbroken and in no condition to decide anything.

Michonne nodded and sat down in Carl’s empty spot. “You underestimate that woman’s willpower. She may not know how to fight, but she’s determined to lead her people, the same way that you are.”

 

* * *

 

Everyone was there, crammed into Deanna’s usually fairly spacious living/dining room. Now, it was nearly impossible to set a foot forward without bumping into someone else. Rick made his way to the corner next to the empty fireplace. Michonne, Daryl and Carol (carrying Judith) followed him. Carl stood on the other side of the fireplace, but when Cal moved to stand beside him, Carl wordlessly walked across the room to stand next to Enid who was lounging with her back to the staircase. Rick frowned, wondering if something had happened between the two boys. If Carl was being mean without a good reason, he’d have to have a word with his son. Cal looked a little hurt and lost until Maggie motioned for him to sit with her next to Deanna on the black leather sofa in the middle of the living room. Eli hesitantly sat down next to his brother on the armchair of the couch.

“Rick.” Jessie walked across the room towards him, holding Sam’s hand. She looked exhausted, Rick noted.

“You made it.” He smiled at her. “How are you holding up?”

“Let’s talk later, alright?” she whispered and turned her head to run one hand over Judith’s hair. Sam moved to stand behind her.

“Now that hopefully everyone is inside, let’s begin.” Deanna’s voice suddenly filled the room. All conversation quieted down. “What happed two days ago was horrible. But I’ve been thinking. It was inevitable. How are we supposed to live like civilised people without guidance, without laws? Yes, we have law enforcement – Rick and Michonne – but no law to actually enforce. I want to change that.”

“How?” Tobin asked. “If anyone breaks a rule, is he,” he pointed at Rick, “just going to execute them?” Rick could see Jessie wince at his words.

“Of course not,” Deanna replied. “That would be barbaric. I propose that we come up with rules and reasonable punishments for them. Execution would only be acceptable for the most severe crime: murder.”

“What about rape?” a woman whose name Rick didn’t know asked out loud just as another person yelled: “So we are going to execute _him_ for murdering our only doctor?”

“Let me get one thing straight,” Deanna started. “Rick did not murder anyone. Pete killed my husband, and then I ordered Rick to shoot him. If anyone is to blame for Pete’s death, it’s me.”

“No, it’s his own fault,” Jessie mumbled quietly. Carol put a hand on her shoulder.

 “I want each of you to be involved in the rule-making process, so I propose we do it now. It might take some time. There are snacks in the kitchen if anyone feels hungry,” Deanna informed them. “Now, may we start?” A soft murmur travelled through the room, and then people started nodding. Deanna handed a piece of paper and a pen to Maggie.

“Because we all agree that we cannot execute everyone for every break of the rules, I propose that we start a small prison system,” Deanna announced. “That means we need people working as guards and to care for the prisoners.”

“We can’t spare people to watch over them,” someone from the other side of the room argued. “What about physical punishment? That could work effectively.”

Deanna shook her head. “We’re not going to hurt our own people.”

“But those people… they would have hurt people, too!”

“We’re not using corporal punishment,” Deanna said again, her voice stern. When there was a murmur going through the room, she sighed. “Fine. Let’s vote. If anyone would like to use torture on big offenses, please raise your hand now.” While Rick would have liked people like Pete to get hurt, he could never risk Carl or any of his people get punished like that, so he left his hand down. Most people did, except for a few. He noted that Ron, who was standing with Mikey and Nicholas, raised his hand.

Deanna appointed one of the regular guards as prison guard and then a second guard as substitute. “Other punishments will include physical labour,” Deanna said.

“If I ever need to punish Carl, I’ll just put him on diaper duty for a week,” Rick whispered in Jessie’s ear and elicited a small chuckle from her.

Deanna went on listing various behaviour that she would count as offenses: stealing from others or the pantry, hoarding food, murder, assault, any sort of violence including domestic violence (Rick watched Jessie study the floral pattern of the curtains), child abuse, rape, vandalism, talking to anyone outside the community in secret… For the most severe crimes people agreed with Deanna, but when it came to finding suitable punishments or it was about smaller offenses they kept arguing. An hour passed. Maggie filled one piece of paper after the other with her neat handwriting. By now, there was a pile of them on front of her on the table. Looking around the room, Rick noted that everyone looked tired. When he gazed at his son, he could see him quietly talk to Enid instead of paying attention to Deanna.

“Nobody can carry a gun unless they are outside, on watch duty or practising,” Deanna said. “And in all cases they have to check them out at the weaponry.”

“That just sounds like a security risk,” Abraham spoke up. “If anyone wants to take this community from us, they just have to get in – we’ll be defenceless. And once they take out Olivia they could take our weapons. Having them all in one place seems unwise.”

Deanna shook her head. “I don’t want anyone to just carry a gun around. It’s unnecessary. The lookouts will prevent anyone from coming in.”

“I agree with Abraham,” Sasha said. Several others spoke in agreement.

“You appointed Rick and Michonne as constables. They should be allowed to always carry a gun,” Rosita suggested.

Deanna looked conflicted, but finally agreed. Of course, making an exception for two members of Rick’s group did nothing to calm down the old Alexandrian residents, who protested about it being unfair.

“You’re giving him a gun after he pointed one at us? No offense, but are you out of your mind?” Tobin did not sound like he was a big fan of the idea.

“Fine. Michonne gets to carry a gun. Rick will have to earn that privilege,” Deanna decided. “And apart from her and the weapons being taken out with permission from Olivia, nobody carries guns. If they do, I propose a prison sentence of one week for the first time they are caught.”

Rick exchanged a look with Daryl, who seemed tense following Deanna’s words. Rick could understand his worries. Carl was already breaking the rules just as they were being written down. Rick decided to take the gun from his son after the meeting and keep it on himself or give back to Daryl. He couldn’t let them take his son to “prison”. Looking over at Carl, he observed him fidgeting a little until Enid gripped his wrist. It was subtle. Rick doubted anyone else saw it.

“Speaking of Michonne and Rick,” Deanna continued, “if anyone sees a crime taking place they come to them. Or me. It’s an offense not to report it if you know someone broke the rules, don’t you agree?” A series of nods went through the room. Deanna went on suggesting possible punishments for those who hid others breaking the rules, and then moved on to other crimes.

More time passed. Daryl took Judith from Carol’s arms and quietly spoke to her as he rocked her. Rick reached out with one hand to stroke her soft, fuzzy blonde hair. Rick could hear Sam complain to Jessie about being bored.

Finally, Deanna was finished with the rules. “For now,” she explained. “I’m sure we’ll have to adjust them from time to time when we see what works and what doesn’t. Now, there’s two possible new residents who would like to stay with us. Eli and Cal Bray came to us two days ago after meeting Daryl and Aaron outside the walls.” Her choice of words was very neutral, Rick observed. “They’re sitting right here next to Maggie. Now, I watched the interviews and I know some of you did, too, yesterday or this morning. I have come to the decision to welcome them into our community.” Maggie shot Cal a little smile. “But I know some of you might have objections,” Deanna continued.

“They’re gypsies,” Bob Miller grumbled. “We shouldn’t let them inside our walls. They’re gonna steal everything we have.”

Eli looked as if he might jump up at any moment to push Bob out of the armchair he was sitting in. Even Cal looked tense.

“We don’t use that word,” Deanna said.

“But-“

“It’s offensive,” Deanna interrupted him. “Maggie, please add ‘use of racial and ethnic slurs’ to the list of minor offenses. Now, does anyone have real objections?”

“What about freedom of speech?” Bob complained.

“You’re free to say it, but then you’ll have to make up for the hurt you’ve caused the two by cleaning the windows of the house they’re living in. It’s only fair.” Rick wondered if she would actually make Bob do that if he repeated the slur. He looked like he might collapse at any time if he only attempted to do manual labour such as cleaning windows.

“I don’t mind them being… you know,” Olivia said. “But I watched the interview and so I know how they met Daryl and Aaron. Eli threatened them and tried to rob them,” she said. This came as a shock to some of the other residents as several of them suddenly started talking to each other. “Who says he’s not going to do it again?”

“First, Eli saved their lives,” Maggie argued. “And he only wanted to get food for his brother, who was starving. He’s got no reason to take anything from us now. Daryl, you can back me up, right?”

Daryl nodded, a sleeping Judith cuddled up to his chest. “That’s what happened. Not gonna lie, Eli pointed his gun at Aaron’s head. But Maggie’s still right.”

“Turning them away from us would mean a death sentence,” Aaron said. “You can’t seriously consider killing a fourteen-year-old boy.”

The rest of the crowd looked uncomfortable. Eli muttered something that led to Cal nudging him with his bony elbow in the ribs. Eli winced.

“They’re just kids,” Maggie took over. Eli shot her a dark look. If Rick had to guess, the twenty-three-year-old did not like to be called a kid. “In my opinion, Eli deserves a second chance.”

“I think they should stay, too.” Rick was surprised to hear his son speak up at the town meeting. “I’ve actually spent some time with them, okay? They’re not a threat. I know what bad people are like. Cal is really nice… and Eli is kind of harmless.”

Rick glanced at the two boys, wondering why Eli looked at Carl in a way that could only be described as murderous. As a complete opposite, Cal looked surprised. He was trying to hide a smile but clearly failing at that. 

“I only know Cal. I don’t want him to stay. He seriously kicked our asses at Call of Duty yesterday, so he is definitely a threat,” Ron added.

Enid let out a chuckle that turned into a cough when all eyes turned towards her.

Olivia sighed. “Okay, so the children want them to stay. Could we please get back to having a mature discussion now? I’m not having anyone in here who tried to attack one of us.”

“We could send away Eli and let Cal stay,” Eric suggested. “I’m sorry, Aaron, but I’m a little uncomfortable with Eli staying after what he’s done.”

“I wouldn’t stay without him,” Cal said quietly.

“Let’s vote then,” Deanna suggested. “Who’s in favour of kicking out Eli and his fourteen-year-old brother?”

The majority of hands in the room stayed down, Rick noted after counting. People who wanted the boys out included the Millers, Spencer, Olivia and a couple of other residents whose names Rick did not know. Surprisingly, Eric did not raise his hand. Rick noted that everyone from his group had voted for the boys to stay.

Deanna nodded. She didn’t smile. “Then it’s decided. Eli and Cal, welcome to Alexandria.”

Maggie turned towards Cal, who looked relieved, and squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. Eli didn’t show any reaction to the decision, sitting on the edge of the sofa as if he was made out of stone.

 

* * *

 

Deanna decided to move the rest of the meeting to another day, which most of them were thankful for. Even Rick was glad to get out of the Monroe living room. Watching the others of his group walk in front of him, Rick slowly walked next to Jessie. “Let’s talk?”

Jessie looked at him, her posture tense, and then nodded. Rick decided to lead her into one of the empty bedrooms of their houses because it was nearly impossible to talk without anyone listening in any of the living rooms. He didn’t sit down. Neither did Jessie. “How are you? I’d prefer the honest answer.”

“I honestly don’t know.” Jessie sighed. “Part of me is mourning my husband, and another part is just- relieved. And then I think, what sort of person am I that I would feel that way about the death of a person I- a person I loved?”

“I’m no expert at this,” Rick replied. “But I don’t think you should feel guilty about that. Your husband was not a good man.”

“I know. If he just hurt me, that would have been- that would have been fine. Did you know that he hurt Ron, too? He hit him. A lot. And I just ignored it…” Jessie looked absolutely devastated.

Rick put his hands on her shoulders gently. “Hey. It’s over. Jessie, it’s over. He’s never going to hurt you or your family ever again.”

“What sort of mother just ignores-“

“Don’t blame yourself. Don’t think about it…”

“I think Ron’s learned a lot of behaviour from his dad,” Jessie said, her voice a little coarse. “I wanted him to become a kind person, someone who uses words to solve conflicts instead of his fist. Clearly I failed.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do! I love my son, but what he did yesterday was unacceptable. Rick, I’m so sorry… I grounded him but I wonder if that’s enough.” She looked up at him apologetically.

Rick frowned. “What did Ron do and why would you apologise to me for it?”

Jessie opened her mouth. “You don’t know? Surely you must have seen-“

“Know about what?”

“Carl’s injury. His nose. I saw the bruise today at the meeting and I can’t tell you how sorry-“

That’s what she was sorry for? He honestly hadn’t expected it. “Accidents happen,” he tried to reassure her. “Especially when you’re goofing around and playing soccer.”

“Rick,” Jessie said and looked up at him, her expression deadly serious. “The boys weren’t playing soccer. I don’t know what your son told you. The injury happened because of a fight. Ron punched Carl in the face.”

“What?!” Rick didn’t know what to say. His instincts were telling him to get out and look for his son now, to make sure he was alright. His second instinct was to demand to speak to Ron. None of those instincts would be helpful in any way. “Did he hurt Ron?” he finally asked.

Jessie shook her head. “No, there’s not a scratch on him. From what Maggie told me, Carl left right after Ron hit him. Rick, I am so sorry…”

“Stop apologising.” His voice was firm. Part of him wanted to yell at her, demand why she hadn’t been there to stop her son. But how could he expect her to supervise Ron’s every move? It wasn’t her fault. Looking at her, there was no way he could blame her. “You’re always apologising for the violence caused by the men in your life… while you would never hurt anyone. It’s not your place to be sorry.”

“You know how it is, you have children,” Jessie replied. “Everything they do, you feel responsible. You’re the one shaping them when they grow up.”

“When he was only thirteen, Carl shot a boy not much older than Ron,” Rick admitted. “I felt- I felt like I had failed him completely.”

Jessie put her hands against his neck. They felt warm, and so he slowly closed his eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” she said softly. “We’re going to talk to them, help them understand each other. Things are tense right now, but they don’t need to be-“

Rick interrupted her by tilting his head forward until his lips met hers. He could feel her take in a small breath of surprise. Then, there was an added pressure from her soft lips against his chapped ones as she hesitantly began kissing him back. A thumb faintly rubbed against his neck. Rick brought up his hand to the back of her head, fingers running over her messy hair, the other one landing on the soft curve of her back, feeling the worn flannel under his fingers. Jessie tasted warm, like the vanilla pastries Deanna had offered in her kitchen. He opened his lips a little more and Jessie let out a small sound against his mouth before her hands moved from his neck to the front of his chest to push him away.

Once their lips disconnected with a tiny sound that sounded way too loud in the otherwise quiet bedroom, Rick opened his eyes.

“No,” Jessie mumbled. “No, Rick, I can’t. You’re- you’re ridiculously attractive, god help me, and,” one hand travelled across his chest, grasping at the fabric of his shirt, “you’re not making this easy for me. But I can’t be with you,” she said, her voice growing steady. “Not now. Not after- I don’t blame you for pulling the trigger, but this isn’t going to work. I’m not going to leave one unhealthy relationship to enter the next.” Before he could find the words to reply, she had walked past him towards the door of the bedroom they had forgotten to close. Which became especially apparent now that he could see a shocked Carl Grimes stand in the doorway.

Jessie smiled apologetically at them both before she disappeared.

Rick sighed and sat down at the double bed in the middle of the room.

“What the fuck, dad?!”

“Language!” Rick looked up at his son. “What’s gotten into you?” In the recent years Carl’s swearing had gotten worse and worse, no doubt caused by everyone around him using foul language, too.

Carl shook his head. “I can’t believe you. If Ron finds out...”

“How much did you hear?”

“Enough,” Carl said and looked at him with dark eyes. “Apparently you feel like you’ve failed with me? That’s really great to hear, thanks, dad.” Even though he mostly looked angry, Rick could sense that he was hurt, too.

“I didn’t mean that,” Rick tried to explain himself. “I was talking about one thing and that was ages ago. And Jessie’s love life is none of Ron’s business.”

“He’s just going to hate us more,” Carl complained. “You just had to make a move on his mother right after killing his dad, right?”

“This has nothing to do with Pete.”

“It does. I mean, now she’s conveniently single… is that why you killed him? I thought you just wanted to help her, but maybe that was a lie.”

Rick got up. He could feel the anger boiling under his skin. “Don’t lecture me about lying. When were you going to tell me that Ron punched you in the nose?”

Carl opened his mouth. “I- You didn’t need to know. It was my own fault. How did you find out?”

“Jessie told me, because Maggie came to talk to her, apparently. I’m glad that you told her, at least, but just so we’re clear: you don’t lie to me again.”

“I didn’t tell her,” Carl replied in a bitter voice. “Cal told her.”

“Why are you being so mean to Cal?” Rick wanted to know. He’d thought that Cal being his son’s age and him staying with them would most likely result in a friendship.

Carl shook his head. “Didn’t you hear me speak at the meeting?”

“I meant before,” Rick clarified. “This morning you didn’t speak to him at all and then you moved away from him at the meeting.”

“He ratted me out to Maggie! And before that, he stayed at Ron’s even though he was acting like a giant dick.”

“Carl!”

“I could’ve handled Ron on my own. It wasn’t Cal’s business to tell. Or Maggie’s. It’s also none of your business.” Carl stared at him, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Did the others – Enid, Mikey – not stay with Ron?” Rick wanted to know. He wasn’t even going to reply to the ‘none of your business’ part because even Carl had to know how wrong he was about that.

“They did stay with him, too.” Carl mumbled, breaking eye contact.

“Why did you forgive Enid for it, but not Cal?” Rick asked. “Is it because she’s a pretty girl and you-“

“Dad, how do you know I’m not gay?”

Carl’s words rendered him speechless. If this was his son coming out to him, this was not how he’d imagined it. Actually, he hadn’t imagined it at all. He’d always assumed that Carl was straight, like everyone else of their group except from Tara. He got up from the bed. Carl was fidgeting with his hands “Are you?”

“No! But you couldn’t know that I wasn’t.” He sighed. “Enid being a girl has nothing to do with this. She came to talk to me afterwards, and I understand why she acted the way she acted. I’m just really kinda pissed off with Cal at the moment, okay? You can’t change that. By the way, great way to change the topic.”

“I don’t see why we should talk about Jessie and me,” Rick replied. “It’s adult stuff,” he added. “Besides, you’ve seen her reject me for now so there isn’t much to talk about…”

“Yeah, it’s never going to work out.” Carl put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “You killed Pete. She’s not gonna forget that. And Ron hates your guts.”

Rick sighed. “Right now things are complicated, but in a while, after time has passed, it’ll look different.”

Carl shook his head. “No. You killed her husband. You’re making everything worse for all of us! They already don’t trust you for shooting Pete, how is that going to look if you start sleeping with his wife?”

“We’re not talking about this anymore,” Rick said in a stern voice. “It’s not an appropriate topic for someone your age.”

Carl rolled his eyes. Rick could see he was annoyed at being called out on being a teenager. Often, Rick thought, Carl liked to pretend he was older than he actually was. “It’s not going to work. She loved Pete. That’s why you and mum didn’t work out. You killed Shane, and she was in love with him.”

Rick looked at his son, lips pressed together. For a moment, he wanted nothing more than to slap him. “Now, I know you had a bad day yesterday. I wish you would have told me about it instead of lying and now lashing out like this. It’s not like you.”

Carl didn’t maintain eye contact, instead focusing his gaze on a spot on the floor, his hand coming up to his nose as he rested two fingers against it.

“Ron never should have raised his hand against you,” Rick said, trying to hide the anger in his voice. “If he ever does it again…”

“You can’t do anything, dad,” Carl said. “It’s not up to you to deal with Ron. That’s Jessie’s job.” Without looking back up he turned around and left Rick alone in the bedroom.

Rick sat back down on the bed before slowly declining his back. The mattress was soft, and for a moment it bothered him. Closing his eyes, he tried not to think about Pete, about Jessie, about Carl and his problems with the other kids, about any of it.

 

* * *

 

“Tsk, we take off our shoes off before we lie down on the bed.” Rick’s eyes shot open. It had been Carol’s voice that interrupted his sleep. Looking up, he could see her carry Judith. Daryl followed right behind her.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Rick replied and sat up. “Damn mattress is way too soft.”

Judith let out a happy gurgle as Carol passed her onto her father, one pudgy hand slapping at his face. It was hard to keep track of time, but from what he remembered from Carl’s development and Carol’s baby knowledge, she should be around eight months now. “Hello, sweetheart,” he whispered and sat her down on his lap, his hand holding her chest so she would not fall off his lap.

“We should think about splitting up and sleeping in the bedrooms,” Carol suggested.

Rick frowned. “I don’t like the thought of splitting up. What are we going to do about Eli?”

“We’ll all keep an eye on him, Rick,” Daryl said. “But I don’t think he’s gonna do anything now. He’s dangerous, but not stupid.”

Rick nodded. “Okay. We’ll have to talk to the others about sleeping arrangements. I don’t think all of the second house’s bedrooms have beds in them. The upstairs floor was left pretty unfinished.”

“I don’t think any of us will mind,” Carol said. “As long as they have their privacy.” Carol walked over to the window, looking out. “This room should be yours, Rick, since your back seems to have already claimed it.”

Rick saw Daryl wince at the word ‘claimed’. “You should put up Judy’s crib in here,” the hunter suggested.

“I’ll think about it,” Rick decided. “Don’t think I need a double bed though…”

“You could always share,” Carol suggested.

Rick ignored that comment. “One of you needs to help me figure out how to get Carl to give up his gun. I’m not having them lock him up just because we gave him Eli’s gun.”

“Deanna’s rules ain’t gonna work,” Daryl said. “If they catch him we’ll see that. They’re not putting Carl in prison. We won’t let them.”

“Let him keep it,” Carol said. “It’s safer for him. And they’d never suspect him. You? You’re the first person they would think would hide a gun, but not your son.”

Rick shook his head. “This is crazy.”

“But smart,” Carol insisted. “Now come on, be a good constable so Deanna will change her mind about letting you be armed.”

Rick got up from the bed and handed Judith to Daryl, who seemed happy to be passed on to someone with such fun hair to pull at. “I will.” Leaning down to press a final kiss to his daughter’s soft hair, he disappeared into the bathroom to change into his new uniform, becoming Rick Grimes, the constable.


	6. Enid's Plan

 

“Carl, you’ve got a visitor,” It was Michonne who spoke to him, the hand on her shoulder moving so gently it couldn’t even be called shaking.

Carl frowned, rubbing the sleep out of his eye as he sat up at the mattress. Right, he’d been sleeping in the living room again. He couldn’t wait until the day they would split up into their own bedrooms. Staying together ought to be safer, but having absolutely no privacy was annoying. At the prison he’d had his own cell at least. No thinking of the prison, Carl decided as he grabbed his jeans and a clean shirt and moved towards the bathroom. “I’ll be back in a sec,” he called out to Michonne.

A few moments later, once he was dressed, he slowly entered the kitchen area where a woman was sitting next to Cal at the counter, holding a cup of coffee in her hand. She looked young, like she hadn’t reached the age of thirty yet. Her hair was blonde, but when he got closer he could tell that it appeared to be dyed. He wondered who had time for hair dyes in times like these. Alexandrians. “Good morning, Carl!” she greeted him with a beaming smile. Carl decided no one could be this cheerful at this time of day.

“Morning,” he mumbled, looking up at Michonne questioningly. Who was this woman and what did she want from him?

“I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself yet: I’m Rosemary, I’m the teacher here,” the stranger, now Rosemary, informed him. “From now on, we’ll probably be spending quite a lot of time together, you and Cal and me. And the other children, of course. Did they tell you about school yet?”

“Ron just said that little kids go in the morning and we go in the afternoon,” Carl said. “But after that, he didn’t mention it once.”

“I figured I’d give you some time to get used to things around here, and with the recent events… I would like to invite you to class tomorrow at 1 though,” Rosemary said. “You, too, Cal, if you feel ready. It might be easier to fit in if you start at the same time as Carl.”

“Can I think about it?” Cal asked, looking at his brother.

Rosemary nodded, getting up from her seat. “I’ll hopefully be seeing the two of you tomorrow,” she said with a smile on her face before slipping out of the house.

Carl walked over to the counter to make himself a peanut butter sandwich, glancing up at Eli who held a seemingly forgotten cup of coffee in his hands.

Eli gave him a short glance before staring at his brother. “You’re going to go tomorrow. There’s not much else you can do around here and at least staying with the other kids will keep you safe.”

Cal sighed. “I don’t like school,” he said. “Never did. I don’t see why I should have to go now, after everything… it’s not like it matters at all.”

“Cal. You’re fourteen. You’re going.”

Carl wanted to tell him that it would be okay, that if they all went together it could be fun, but then he remembered that he was still mad at the other boy. He pressed his lips together and listened to the brothers’ argument, which got surprisingly short-lived as soon as Eli raised his voice.

When Rick came in to make himself a coffee, wearing his new constable outfit sans gun, and ruffled his son’s hair, Carl winced. He could feel Eli’s and Cal’s eyes on them, and the gesture made him seem like a baby. Which reminded him of his sister. “Dad, where’s Judith?”

“Maggie’s got her, they’re at the other house,” Rick said.  “Good morning, Cal, Eli…”

“Good morning, sir,” Cal replied, looking up from his breakfast, which he was eating slowly. Eli didn’t return the greeting.

“You can call me Rick,” Rick said.

Cal nodded. “I don’t think I can finish this…” He stared at his plate.

“Eat up,” Eli said. “We don’t waste food anymore.”

“It’s okay, there’s enough for now,” Rick said. “Or someone else could finish it. Your stomach still seems to be used to small meals, Cal.”

Eli shot him a look so hateful Carl felt the immediate urge to go between them.

Either Rick didn’t notice the glare or he wasn’t intimidated by it at all. “Deanna said she wants to talk to you about your job in this community,” he informed him.

Eli said nothing, the nail of his index finger tapping against his coffee mug. Eventually, he sat it down and clapped his younger brother on the back. “Finish your breakfast.”  

On his way out he nearly collided with Enid. They shot each other nearly identically surly looks, Carl noted with amusement, then Enid came rushing into the kitchen. “Come on, Carl,” she said.

“Did something happen?” Carl wanted to know. He looked up from the rest of his sandwich. Enid had never come into their house asking for him.

Enid shook her head, then let out a sigh. “Nothing’s happened, but you should still come with me.”

The chair made a scraping noise against the kitchen tiles as Carl got up.

“Where are you two going?” Rick questioned Enid.

“Just to hang out with Mikey,” Enid said. She sounded bored.

Carl had already followed her to the door when Rick cleared his throat. “Carl? Aren’t you going to ask Cal to come with you?”

When Carl turned around, Cal was looking down at his plate. He looked uncomfortable. Carl debated saying no to his dad and to just leave. After all, Cal had pretty much done the same to him with Ron the day before yesterday. He still felt a pang of annoyance thinking about that. In the end he sighed. This wasn’t worth risking his dad being mad at him. “Sure. You can come with us if you want, Cal.”

Cal didn’t hesitate before getting up from the breakfast table and following Carl and Enid out of the house. He had to have changed out of his pyjamas before breakfast as he was wearing a white tank-top with an unbuttoned red shirt over it and light blue jeans.

The following silence was awkward. That was until Carl broke it when Enid let them towards the end of the street, towards the wall. “You’re going the wrong way.”

Enid rolled her eyes. “Do you really think we’re going to hang out at Mikey’s?”

“Yeah, I thought-“

“You were wrong,” she interrupted him as she let them around the house to the back.

Carl followed her curiously, and suddenly he recognised the spot she was leading him to: it was the part of the wall she used to climb over. “We’re going outside…” he said slowly.

Enid nodded, when suddenly a figure appeared in Carl’s field of vision. “What the hell, Enid?” It was Ron’s voice, and he sounded seriously pissed off. Carl shot Enid a sour look. She could have warned him, at least. Ron shot his girlfriend a dark look. “You said you were going to meet me! Not them.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Did you forget about the fact that I’m grounded? I had to sneak out to see you. I won’t risk getting caught outside to be with _him_.” He almost spat the last word.

“You’re with me. I just forgot to mention they will be joining us.” Enid shrugged.

“For what?”

“You’ll see.”

Ron stepped closer to Carl, who resisted the urge to take a few steps back. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Cal move closer to his side. “I’m grounded because he told the adults about our fight… Why do you even want to hang out with such a baby, Enid?”

“I told Maggie about the punch,” Cal spoke up. “Carl wanted to keep this quiet. He lied to his father and said it was an accident.”

Carl couldn’t help but feel a surge of sympathy at those words, his anger at Cal fading.

“We’re going over the wall,” Enid said. “I’ve got something for us to do. But we need to move now before anyone sees us here when we’re supposed to be with Mikey.”

Ron shook his head. “I’m not going. It’s crazy and dangerous.”

“Who’s the baby now,” Enid muttered. Ron looked down angrily, that was until Enid stepped forward, whispering something into his ear. Carl tried his best to make out any words, but her voice was impossibly quiet. Enid’s hand rested on the front of Ron’s shirt as she spoke, fingers gently running over the fabric. Carl couldn’t tear his eyes away.

When she stepped back, there was a slight flush on Ron’s face. He cleared his throat. “Okay, yeah, let’s go.”

Enid looked at them all expectantly. “Let’s go,” she repeated.

 

* * *

 

Enid was the first to go over the wall, Ron following her. His movements were a bit clumsier than his girlfriend’s. “Is it bad I kind of want him to fall off?” Carl whispered.

Cal chuckled. “No, not at all. I get it.” He had a little trouble putting his foot on the first rod, so Carl helped him up and followed him over the wall as the last person.

As soon as Carl’s feet hit the ground Enid started making her way deeper into the forest, her steps quick but careful. Carl was painfully aware of how loud his and Ron’s footsteps sounded in comparison to hers and Cal’s.

“Where are we going?” Ron wanted to know, his head turning from one side to the other, glancing towards all corners of the forest, his shoulders hunched forward. If he had to guess Carl would say that this was his first time outside.

Even though he knew there was no pollution inside Alexandria, the air smelled different. For the first time since he’d last been here with Enid, he could breathe again. While being inside the community made him feel safe, being out here made him feel free.

At the creaking of a branch, Ron visibly jerked. Carl exchanged an amused smile with Enid, who led them further through the forest until Carl was sure he would not be able to find his way back to Alexandria without her help. He knew Daryl could read the trails of people like someone else could read a book, but he hadn’t passed that skill onto him yet. The forest ground looked the same to him: dark, dry dirt sparingly covered in light brown leaves that rustled with every step he took.

Finally, Enid stopped next to a fallen log. In this spot, the forest wasn’t as thick, but thick enough you couldn’t call it a clearing.

“Enid, what are we doing here?” Ron asked impatiently. “We’re not safe out here. Walkers could surprise us at any minute. Not to mention the fact that if anyone finds out we snuck out we’re in deep shit. Which could happen right this second.”

“As long as no herd comes along we’ll be fine,” Enid replied in a monotone voice. “And we’ll know if anyone comes looking for us. Catch!” She threw something black at Cal, who managed to catch it before it could fall to the floor.

Cal lifted it to his face and inspected it. “It’s a walkie-talkie. Where did you get that?”

“It’s surprisingly easy to sneak past Olivia,” Enid replied. “Mikey’s got the other one. If anyone comes asking for us, he’ll tell us.”

“There’s still so much that could go wrong with that plan,” Ron complained. “Like, the fact I’m not even supposed to be at Mikey’s. I’m grounded.”

Enid shrugged. “Feel free to walk back,” she said. Ron pressed his lips together. Carl knew he would never walk home alone, even if he knew the way. “I brought you here because I want you two to teach each other how to fight.”

Ron’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Think about it! You know a lot about how to punch someone and how to defend yourself, and Carl knows more about knives than you do,” Enid said.

“The only person I’ve punched so far is Carl! I’m not exactly an expert,” Ron replied. “This makes no sense, Enid.”

“You learn a lot about how to fight with your hands just by being the person who is punched,” she said quietly, looking up at her boyfriend, who was several inches taller than her. That comment left him silent.

“Hey,” Carl said. “I would be okay teaching him… if he doesn’t hurt me again.”

“I don’t want this, Enid,” Ron said. “I hate him, okay?”

“I’m not asking you to be friends,” Enid replied. “Or get along in any way. But you don’t hate him enough to want him dead. He doesn’t want you dead either. You could really help each other out. And Cal and me. Please, Ron?”

Ron held up his hands. “They’re just going to tell their people again and get me in trouble if there’s a single scratch on him.” He pointed at Carl.

Carl crossed his arms in front of my chest. “I’m keeping my mouth shut.”

“Cal?” Enid asked. “Are you going to tell on us?”

“No!” Cal quickly said, running a hand through his dark hair. “Eli would kill me if he knew about me sneaking out.”

“Good.” Enid looked at both boys. “Now, take off your shirts.”

“What?!” Ron exclaimed.

“What for?” Carl asked.

“Don’t you think it would be a bit suspicious if you come back home with really dirty shirts when we’ve just been hanging out with Mikey?” Enid asked. “Carl, your dad would just think you’ve had your way with me on the forest ground.”

Carl felt his face turn red at her words.

“Fine.” Ron sighed, his hand gripping the neck of his shirt as he pulled it off over his head. Carl glanced at the white, lean torso that was revealed, longer than his own since Ron was taller. When he caught sight of the trail of hair leading down from Ron’s belly-button to his jeans, he quickly looked away. Apart from Eli and the men from his group, he’d never seen anyone shirtless. Ron was closest to him in age, and so he couldn’t help but compare himself to him. He could feel all eyes on him now.

“Carl,” Enid prompted him.

Fuck. How was he supposed to hide his gun if he had to take off his shirts? There was no way he could fight Ron shirtless and keep his gun hidden. Unless he somehow managed to hide it in his shirt while taking it off? That was worth a try.

He took off his hat first, placing it on top of the fallen tree. This was the easy part. He slowly unbuttoned his blue plaid flannel shirt, which, for some reason, took ages. Shrugging it off, his hand came up behind his back, grabbing the gun and wrapping it around the shirt. Luckily he was standing with his chest towards the others, not his back. Bending down, he carefully placed the shirt with the gun inside before the log. Now, he was only wearing a simple beige-coloured thin shirt. He shivered, his arms coming up in front of his chest even though he wasn’t shirtless yet. Undressing felt so strange when he was doing it in front of people, people who were watching him. Taking in a deep breath – because he was just being a total coward – he pulled off his shirt and placed it next to the other shirts. It was hard to ignore the fact that he was shirtless when Enid and Cal wouldn’t stop staring at him. “What?” he snapped.

“Nothing,” Enid said, smiling.

He was still too caught up in the fact he was shirtless in front of people to notice Ron charging at him with full speed, pushing him. Carl nearly fell onto his ass. Gripping Ron’s arms, he pushed him back, but was met with resistance. After a couple of pushes back and forth, Carl tried to force all of his strength into his arms and gave one big, final push. Ron stumbled onto the ground, landing on his back.

“Guys,” Enid said. “I didn’t take you into the forest so you’d fight like a pair of squirrels.”

Ron groaned and got up to his feet. “Why don’t you take off your shirt and show us then?”

“You wish,” Enid replied. “Besides, it wouldn’t be a fair fight.”

“No really, what is the purpose of this? You just want a reason to ogle Carl,” Ron accused her, a sharp edge to his voice. “You’ve planned this.”

Enid sighed. “Just show him everything you know about fist fights. Real fist fights.”

Ron rolled his eyes, but stepped closer to Carl. “Make a fist.”

Carl did as he was told, turning his right hand into a fist.

“You’re doing it wrong. You don’t put your thumb inside your fist,” Ron explained. “Here, you curl it around your other fingers… like this.” He grasped Carl’s hand and moved his thumb into the correct position. Ron’s fingers were warm and sweaty. “You need to hurt me with the first two knuckles, but not your fingers. You’d only hurt them. Try it.”

Carl mimicked punching him, but didn’t make contact with Ron’s skin. Even though he’d been so, so angry at him yesterday and the day before, he suddenly didn’t want to hurt him now. All he could think of was Pete. Had he really hurt his son? Why would anyone want to do this to their own family? Had Ron just let it happen or had he tried to fight back?

“You could aim for the eyes,” Ron said. “That feels like hell.” He looked a bit subdued, almost as if he was lost in thought.

“Or the nose,” Carl added.

“While hitting the face hurts like hell, it can also mess up your hand and if you’re new to this you might totally miss,” Ron said. “Throat is pretty effective, too, makes the other person unable to breath for a while.”

“Do you really know all this because your dad-“

“If you aim for the stomach, you’re less likely to miss, and it’s really fucking painful, too,” Ron interrupted him. Carl looked up at him. Saw him stare down at Carl’s fist, biting his lip. “Try it. Hit me. In the stomach.”

Carl shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ron.”

Before he knew what was happening Ron’s hand shot forward, his knuckles punching Carl in the stomach with full force. Carl could feel his knees hitting the forest ground, trying to breathe out, trying to will the pain to go away.

A few seconds later, Cal was beside him on the ground, one hand rubbing across his bare back. Carl shivered. For a moment, while he’d been hit, he’d forgotten he was still not wearing a shirt. “Are you alright?” Carl nodded, feeling a strange sense of deja-vu. Cal helped him to his feet.

Enid was just watching them from the log. “You should have hit him first.”

Carl shook his head. The thought of doing this to Ron, to do the same thing Pete had done to him, disgusted him.  

One second later, and he was on the ground again. Maybe, in a real fight, he would have had a chance against Ron. But not like this, not if he didn’t fight back. “This isn’t working,” Cal said and helped him up again.

“Ron hates you,” Enid said. “He told me so, last night. He said he wishes you never came here.”

Her words hurt, but it wasn’t like he expected Ron’s feeling for him to be any different.

“He said that if there was a god, your dad would have died instead of his own,” Enid went on. By the expression on her face, he could tell that she wasn’t lying. “He thinks that Cal is much nicer, but that he’s weak. He’s seen the tape of Maggie interviewing him.”

“Hey,” Carl said, feeling Cal, who was still standing beside him, stiffen.

Enid got up from the log. “Just hit him again, Ron.”

Ron shook his head. “It won’t work if he’s not fighting back,” he said. “This was a stupid idea. Let’s go home.”

Enid shook her head, taking a few steps forward towards Ron. Her hand, forming a perfect fist, shot forward towards his face, but before it could connect with his skin, he had blocked the punch. There was a loud, ugly sound as Ron’s fist struck against her cheek.

Carl stared with his eyes wide open as Ron hit her again, her long, dark hair flying through the air the only thing he could see. He couldn’t- he couldn’t let him do this. His mind barely registered what was happening as he moved in between them, doing the only thing he could think of to hurt Ron, his knee shooting up to smash against his groin. With a groan full of pain, Ron dropped to the ground, holding himself. He let out a whimper. “Fuck you, Carl.”

Carl bent down, holding out his hand. To his surprise, Ron actually took it. As he was in the process of pulling him up, Ron moved his foot to kick him. When the hard sole of Ron’s shoe connected with his knee, Carl practically collapsed on top of him, his bare chest pressed against Ron’s sweaty skin. His first instinct was to roll off him, but then he thought better off it and moved his arm to press against Ron’s throat. The older boy seemed surprised by that move, but when he didn’t make any sounds of pain, Carl applied more pressure. Ron’s hands tried to pull off his hands, but Carl tried his best to keep them away with his free hand, using his body weight to keep Ron pinned to the ground.

Carl didn’t know exactly how much time had passed – two seconds? Ten seconds? – when he was forced to let go due to Ron’s fist connecting with the side of his ribcage. He rolled off him, clutching his side. He expected the fight to be over now, but suddenly there was something pushing his back. Carl fell onto his front. Quickly, he tried to get up from the wet leaves on the forest dirt, but there was a weight preventing him from moving. “Ron,” Carl let out, trying to use his hands to push him off, but from his position that was an impossible mission.

Ron pushed his head against the ground. His cheek was getting cold from being pressed tightly against the ground. Fuck. He couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t he breathe? He knew that Ron wasn’t pushing against his airways. Trying to open his mouth to get some damn air inside his lung, he wriggled underneath Ron to push him off, but it simply wasn’t working. He could feel his pulse speed up. “Ron, let go,” he said breathlessly. He could almost hear it, the clinking of a belt, although it wasn’t really there, was it? Ron wasn’t taking his clothes off. He was simply holding him down, he told himself. It was just a play fight. Nothing to be scared of. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Please, Ron…”

“No,” Ron said, the weight of his body resting on Carl’s back.

Carl tried to lift his head, but Ron kept his hand on the back of his head to press it against the ground. Fuck, he was going to suffocate. His lungs suddenly didn’t work. Did he have a lung disease? Shit. “Please,” he whispered again, his voice nearly begging, almost expecting his jeans to be pulled off his legs.

“Ron!” It was Enid’s voice, harsh and loud in the forest. Suddenly, the weight was lifted off his back. Carl turned around to lie on his back, panting. He could see that Enid was gripping Ron’s shoulders. Maybe she had pulled him off?

Cal was kneeling next to him now, helping him sit up.

Ron was staring at him. “What happened?”

Carl just shook his head, taking the hand that Cal offered him and slowly got up to his feet. His heart still felt like it was beating like crazy. He sat down on the log, the younger boy next to him.

Enid shrugged off her hoodie. “Come on, Ron. Leave him for a bit. You can help me out with my punches,” she said.

Carl watched them begin to practise. He could tell that both of them were holding back a little to not seriously hurt the other person. Then, his eyes glanced sideways towards Cal, who had stayed quiet.

“I couldn’t breathe suddenly,” he explained. “I think there is something wrong with my lungs…”

They stayed quiet for a while, until Carl could feel Cal’s eyes on the spot of skin between chest and stomach. “What happened there?” Cal asked, his index finger pointing at the scar.

“Bullet wound,” Carl replied.

“Did someone shoot at you?” Cal sounded incredulous.

Carl shook his head. “It was an accident. We found a deer in the forest, but when I got closer both the deer and I were shot.”

“So it happened before… all this?” Cal wanted to know.

“No, there were zombies and everything and they couldn’t get me to a hospital because all of them were overrun. Luckily the man who shot me belonged to a farm with a doctor. Well, when I say doctor, I mean vet. He saved my life.”

“That was nice of him,” Cal said quietly. “Where is he now?”

“He died,” Carl told him. After a moment of silence, he added: “He was Maggie’s father, you know? He came with us, became part of our group. Me getting shot, that’s how we met Maggie and her family.”

“Does she still have any family?”

“Just us,” Carl replied quietly.

Cal seemed to think about that for a while. “It’s nice. You people being such a family. You don’t seem fucked up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a family that isn’t fucked up.”

Carl shook his head, letting out a dry chuckle. “Trust me, we are.” He thought of Daryl, who wouldn’t let anyone come too close, like a feral cat, of Sasha, who he hadn’t seen smile in weeks, of his dad, who’d ripped out a man’s throat.

When Carl glanced at Ron and Enid, he discovered that Ron had her pinned down, but she didn’t look like she was scared at all. After a moment, he let go of her arms and instead brushed a strand of hair away that had fallen into her face.

He suddenly became aware of Cal shaking his shoulder. “You know, I could show you how to fight with knives, it’s not fair you didn’t get a chance to learn anything yet,” Carl said absent-mindedly.

Cal didn’t seem to care about his words. “Look!” he whispered intently into his ear. For a second, Carl thought he meant Ron and Enid, who were getting a little bit too close for normal fighting, but when he turned his head Cal was pointing in the other direction. “Listen!”

Now that he knew to pay attention he could make out the threatening snarls of walkers. “It’s more than one,” Carl noted.

“We need to get back over the walls right now.” Cal’s eyes were wide open.

Carl shook his head, getting up from the log. He pulled out his gun from underneath his bunched up shirt on the ground and stuck it into the back of his jeans. Cal knew he had it, anyway. “They could follow us back to Alexandria. We don’t need any walkers near the wall. Or they might attack someone else. If someone else dies from them, it’s our fault. I can take care of them,” he said, keeping his voice steady. He could do this. He’d done this a thousand times before.

He was about to call out for Enid and Ron and warn them about the walkers, but when she pushed her boyfriend off her and got out her knife, Carl knew that she had already heard them.

Taking out his spare knife, he handed it to Cal, just in case the other teenager hadn’t brought his own. Cal looked down at the blade in his hand, biting his lip. “It’s okay,” Carl said, trying to sound reassuring. “We’re enough to take them out.”

Enid charged forward into the woods, taking out the first walker that appeared in her field of vision. When a second and a third one appeared, Carl rushed to her side to help her. “Come on!” he yelled, urging Cal to follow him. When he reached Enid and the walkers, he used a trick his dad had taught him to get it to fall down. On the ground, it was easier to stab its brain. He barely registered the smell of blood and rotten brain matter, adrenaline surging through his veins as he looked up and saw another walker come dangerously close to Cal. The other teenager held up his knife. In the end, he didn’t do anything but stare into its dead eyes. Fuck. Carl moved in front of him to get the walker in the brain before he could get a bite out of Cal.

He heard Enid put down a walker to their left.

“Have you not done this before?” Carl asked, panting. How could someone who had spent time outside the walls be so inexperienced?

Cal shook his head. His blue eyes appeared darker than usual right now, full of fear.

“Okay. Stay behind me,” Carl instructed. Cal did as he was told, standing so close to his back that he could almost feel his fast breath on the back of his neck. When another walker came charging at them he stabbed it before it could get too close to Cal. The walker dropped down to the ground with a loud thud.

Carl turned around towards the other two. “You alright? Did you get bitten or scratched?”

Cal shook his head. He looked so worried that Carl held off on questioning him about his lack of experience for now. They could have used help with the walkers, not just a person standing still with a knife in their hand.

Enid didn’t say anything, until all of the sudden she let out a loud yell. The sound sent shivers down Carl’s back, and not in a good way. “Ron! Watch out!”

Carl turned around on his heel. Ron, who had apparently stayed behind quite a bit – Carl honestly hadn’t noticed, too focussed on the threat in front of them – yelped in shock as a walker appeared from behind the trees from the other direction, making his way towards him.

Ron took one look at his girlfriend, then grabbed a branch and stepped forward. “Get back!” Carl shouted, just as Ron tried to stab the walker in the brain with it. Nothing much happened, except that the branch, wet and brittle, snapped in two. Carl could hear the walker snarl, its hand reaching forward to grab Ron’s shoulder.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. They were most likely too far away to reach him to help, but that didn’t stop Enid from trying, rushing towards Ron. Shit. Carl got out his gun, removing the safety, holding it up high. There was a small chance he might hit Enid, or even Ron, and a good one he would completely miss the walker. Fuck that. He had to try it. If he didn’t, Ron could die, and it would be his fault. He pulled the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot rang in his ear, but he’d heard worse, barely registering it as he saw both the walker and Ron go down. He started running, the Glock still in his hand. He’d shot Ron. It was by accident, but what the fuck did that matter? Fuck.

He came to a halt when Enid started pulling the walker off Ron, her face white as a sheet. Carl could feel Cal’s hands on his shoulder. He stepped forward to get away from the touch.

Carl stared anxiously as Enid lifted the dead body off Ron, but instead of another lifeless body, she only revealed a sputtering, coughing boy who rolled to side and started throwing up.

Enid started laughing. It sounded loud and wrong in the deadly quiet forest. “Enid,” Carl said, but she wouldn’t stop. Only when he went up to her and shook her shoulders, her laughter slowly quieted down.

Ron turned around and stared at Carl. “You have a gun,” he said, his voice accusing. He looked up at him with squinting eyes

Carl shrugged. “I do. And that gun just saved your life.”

“Bullshit! You nearly killed me!” Ron yelled.

Carl wasn’t listening. Ron being shirtless made it a lot easier to search his body for bite marks. Gripping his arm with both hands, he turned it around. Nothing. Carl let out a sigh of relief before gripping his wrist to check his hand, the fast pulse he could feel underneath his thumb reminding him that no, he hadn’t killed Ron. Ron was alive and neither bitten nor shot… He’d never been more grateful to see him glare at him, his mouth pressed into a thin line. There was dirt and sweat and blood clinging to his hairline. Carl could feel the corners of his own mouth turn into a smile.

“Let go of me,” Ron scowled as he yanked back his hand.

“Stop it,” Enid muttered. “Let’s get dressed and go back. Ron, please.”

It must have been the shock that made stop protesting, Enid leading him towards the log and then back through the forest. Carl put his clothes back on, hid his gun away again and quickly followed them before he could lose sight of them.

 

* * *

 

“Carl!”

Carl winced when he heard his voice being called out as soon as his feet touched the ground. Ignoring it for now, he held up his arms to help Cal get down the metal wall.

“Can’t believe it!”

Carl spun around. What was Tara doing here? The last time he’d seen her, she’d been in the infirmary, bed-bound. When he tried to make eye contact with Enid he discovered that she had already made off with Ron.

 “First day out of bed and you just have to get me into trouble!” Tara complained, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“What are you doing here?” Carl asked her.

“I could ask you the same thing!”

“I asked you first,” Carl replied.

“They let me leave the infirmary, and being absolutely sick from being inside, I decided to take a walk. Just a small one, to get fresh air. Only minding my own business. Until I had to watch you two go over the walls! Are you serious?!”

Carl sighed. “Please don’t say anything? Please?”

“Eli doesn’t need to know,” Cal added.

“It’s just my luck. First day out of bed, and of course I step right into trouble,” Tara repeated.

It could have been worse, Carl decided. With Tara, at least he had a shot at convincing her to not say anything. Daryl, Carol or Michonne surely would go straight to his dad. “How’s your head today?” he asked her, stepping closer.

She didn’t fall for the distraction, her eyes darting down to look at him. “Your shirt is inside out,” she remarked, one side of her mouth quirking up into a grin. “I’m not going to tell Rick, but only because I think you should have the chance to tell him in your own time.”

Carl quickly glanced down at his beige shirt, which indeed was turned inside out. He had to have put it on the wrong way when he was in a hurry to follow Enid and Ron back to Alexandria. Still, Tara’s comment puzzled him. “So?”

“So your secret is safe with me.” She winked at him, then glanced at Cal.

The colour of his face turned crimson as soon as he realised what exactly Tara meant. “No-“

“Come on,” Cal interrupted him, grabbing his wrist and pulling him towards the house.

Carl pulled his hand free. “What are you doing?” he hissed under his breath. He wanted to go back to Tara, explain that everything had been a mistake and the reason for having taken his shirt off wasn’t… _that_. “She thinks that we-“

“Perfect.”

Carl shot him a confused look.

“Would you rather she knows about our secret fight club in the woods? You heard her, she’s not going to tell anyone we snuck out now,” Cal explained and opened the door to the house.

Carl watched him walk up to his brother and greet him with a smile. There was something off about Tara thinking that he and Cal were involved. It didn’t feel right, lying to her. At least she would never tell anybody, that he was sure of, she was trustworthy like that.

Luckily no one was in the bathroom at this time of day. Carl quickly shrugged off his clothes and stepped under the spray to wash off any traces of fighting Ron and the walkers in the forest. He closed his eyes. Nothing had happened out there. They had killed the walkers. Everyone was still alive. No one died today. And what Cal did had been nice, defending him in front of Ron. Even if making Tara believe there was something going on between them was going to have consequences…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did y'all think? I wrote this long before the latest episode aired, and I cannot help but love that in any fic or in canon, Carl just won't stay in the house ;)


	7. Bumping Fists

 

This headache was killing her. She squeezed her eyes shut, hand pressed against her forehead. It was nothing to worry about. Ever since the accident, she’d had reoccurring headaches. It would be fine eventually. Give it time, she told herself. You’ve only been out of bed for two days. Well. Not that she stayed on her feet all day. She tried to, but in moments like these the only thing that helped was to retreat to the small bedroom upstairs, the only one with curtains.

“Tara?” She hadn’t even heard the door click open. Without turning her head she knew who her visitor was: she would recognise Rosita’s angry sigh anywhere. “This house is far too big. I had to search every room for you. I walked in on Rick changing. I’ve seen things I’ve never wanted to see in my life. Things starting with b and ending in –allsack.”

Tara couldn’t help but chuckle. “Lucky you.” She slowly turned her head, careful not to give the pain any reason to increase. “Hey.”

Rosita was leaning against the doorway, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Any reason you’re in bed?”

“Nope, just enjoying being able to have afternoon naps again.”

“You’ve been in here for three hours.” Rosita scowled. “Did you take any painkillers today?”

Tara shrugged, not wanting to lie to the other woman. She hadn’t. Yesterday, her head had been perfectly fine and so she didn’t see any reason to waste the pills.

“As official medical assistant I’m ordering you to come with me to see Denise. I know your head’s still bothering you.” Rosita moved over to the window and opened the curtains in a swift motion. Tara closed her eyes, but eventually swung her legs out of the bottom of the bunk bed she’d been lying on. There was no chance in hell to win against Rosita when she was this determined.

 

* * *

 

“I honestly cannot see – or well, hear – anything unusual. I’m afraid your lungs and airways are perfectly healthy. At least I think they are. Don’t blame me if not. Well… you’d have a reason to blame me, I guess. And I’ll stop rambling now…” Denise tucked her stethoscope away.

“You’re only going to scare him,” Tara said, announcing her presence. Behind her, Rosita was following her into the infirmary. “Don’t listen to her, Carl, she’s actually good at what she’s doing.”

“That’s debatable,” Denise shot back. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m only doing this because everyone else would suck a little bit more at this than me – although anyone who picked up a medical textbook and studied it for a few days could easily do my job. I could be missing so much. Maybe you’re developing asthma? The only thing I know for sure is that you’re not having an asthma attack right now. There are other ways to prove it, I think, but we have none of the tools available for that, or the knowledge of how to use them…”

Carl looked up at her, uncertainty in his eyes. “I think I’ll just go…”

“Wait,” Denise said, stopping him from getting off the table. “How’s your nose?”

“Much better,” he replied. “You were probably right when you said it wasn’t broken.”

Tara could see a small smile form on Denise’s face at his words, one that quickly disappeared when her eyes fell onto his torso. “What’s that?” she pointed at something on his stomach.

Tara took a few steps forward to see. Of course, Carl deserved his privacy, but she couldn’t help being nosy.

“Just some old bruises,” Carl quickly said, reaching for his shirt.

“They’re purple, they can only be a few days old,” Denise commented and shook her head. “Let me have a closer look…”

“It’s nothing,” Carl said again and slipped off the table, pulling his shirt over his head in the process. In just a few seconds he’d walked past Tara and Rosita and disappeared out of the door.

Tara blinked. Nobody would hurt Carl, no one from their group… Was it possible that the fight with Ron had been more severe than what Cal had described? She hadn’t actually heard about it from the teenager himself, but Maggie had pulled her aside yesterday to tell her. It didn’t seem likely that Cal would leave things out.

Or maybe… she’d seen Carl and Cal sneak back into the walls only two days ago. And god knows what they had been doing. But clearly they had done something that involved taking Carl’s shirt off and putting it on again. Tara had assumed that the two of them had been making out a little with their shirts off, but nothing… nothing that would leave bruising. Or was it just a giant love bite? Tara frowned, not wanting to imagine Carl receiving a love bite this big on his stomach. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Surely they weren’t having sex yet? Cal had only been with them for about a week and Carl didn’t strike her as the person who would get intimate with someone after knowing them for that little time. Of course, he didn’t strike her as the kind of person who had sex, period. He was only fourteen.

“Tara? Are you with me?”

Tara glanced up, looking right into Denise’s eyes. She must have been too deep in thought about Carl’s potential sex life (uargh) to notice the medic trying to get her attention.

Tara gave her a smile. “I’m all yours.”

 

* * *

 

In the end she got away with a scolding for not having taken the painkillers and a promise to return as soon as the headaches worsened or she felt dizzy. “You sustained a very serious injury, Tara. I need you to treat it like that even though I allowed you to be out of here.”

“I’ll make sure she does,” Rosita added with a grim look.

“Sure, mum,” Tara replied and grinned at Rosita. “Thank you so much, Denise. You’re really good at this stuff. Now you only need to believe that you are.”

Denise sighed. “You’re only saying that because-“

“-you saved my life,” Tara finished for her and got up from the examination table. “I will never be able to repay you for this.”

“Just don’t die,” Denise said.

“Pretty sure we’re missing dinner right now,” Rosita remarked. “And Carol is making vegetarian lasagna today.”

“Say no more. I’m coming.”

 

* * *

 

Dinner was a cramped affair, like always. They still only used house 2 for meals because it felt silly splitting up the group for meals. Even with the dinner table parallel to the breakfast bar, technically the kitchen only had space for ten people, not fifteen (not counting Judith). Father Gabriel, Abraham and Eugene were eating leaning against the kitchen counter, Rosita had even hopped on top of the breakfast bar in spite of Carol’s disapproving glances at the breach of dinner etiquette.

On the road, they had always had to eat in silence, so the voices filling the kitchen were something new to Tara’s ears. She felt like she could get used to it soon though.

“This is delicious, Carol, thank you very much,” Maggie said. She was sitting on Glenn’s lap, which seemed impractical for eating, but she had insisted it would save up another space. Couples. Everyone quickly followed sending their praise to the cook. Tara could swear this was the first time Carol had smiled today.

“I just wish we had ground beef,” Rosita said and sighed. “I miss it more than anything.”

“Squirrel’s not good enough for you?” Daryl wanted to know, but his tone was as playful as the hunter could get.

“I miss pizza,” Glenn added to the conversation. “Sometimes, I got it for free after my shift ended. Nothing tastes better than free pizza.”

His wife laughed. “I miss my mum’s pancakes.”

Carl grinned and shook his head. “I don’t.”

They both fell silent. Tara reached out to squeeze Maggie’s hand under the table.

“We should talk about living arrangements,” Carol finally broke the silence. “Staying in the living room together is safe and all, but it might be time to make use of both houses and their bedrooms.”

Michonne nodded. “I agree with you.”

Sasha shrugged. “I don’t mind sleeping in the living room.”

Rick looked at her. “We won’t _make_ anyone sleep in a bedroom,” he said.

“Speak for yourself,” Carol replied.

“We’ll need to split up into the two houses,” Rick suggested. He held up a spoonful of mashed up lasagne to offer to his daughter. Judith, well-behaved infant that she was, ate without protest. It had to be a step up from ground up acorns.

“Cal and I aren’t splitting up,” Eli said from one end of the table – the first words he’d spoken all dinner.

“You can stay together, even share a room,” Rick replied. “If Cal wants to.”

The younger brother just nodded.

Maggie, who had finished her portion already, got up to walk over to the living room area, returning with a piece of paper and a pen. When she came back, she leaned against the breakfast bar. From her seat Tara could faintly see the words House 1 / House 2 written on it. “We seriously need better names for them,” Tara muttered.

“Now, this house has four mostly empty bedrooms. The house next door has bedrooms with beds…” She scrunched up her nose. “Does anyone know how many beds are in them?”

“There’s a master bedroom, a room with a double, one with two single beds and then there’s the bunk-bed room,” Michonne said helpfully. “I think the children should sleep in proper beds for sure.”

“If Cal and Eli aren’t splitting up, we’re putting them in one of those,” Maggie said. “Would you mind sharing a double? There’s only a limited amount of single beds.”

“We wouldn’t mind,” Eli said.

Maggie put their names down on the paper next to the bedroom she’d assigned them.

Tara turned her head to glance at them for a moment. They weren’t part of the group, you could tell, they didn’t speak to the others like they were family, they didn’t fit into the picture, not really. Not yet. Eli had been so quiet ever since he arrived in Alexandria. No one could really speak to him. Part of her thought about trying to make him engage in a friendly conversation, but then no one knew what he might have gone through, Tara reminded herself. She’d been tempted to watch the tapes, but in the end decided she’d rather get to know him and her brother on her own.

“Carl, who do you want to share a room with? Your dad?” Maggie asked.

Tara nearly had to laugh at the horrified expression on his face that he quickly tried to hide. “If I have to,” he said. “Can I share with Judy?”

Rick shook his head. “No, it’s important that you get a good sleep now, you shouldn’t be responsible to look after her at night.”

Carl gave him a look that could only be described as a subtle pout. “You’d let the others look after her at night.”

Rick sighed. “Maybe some nights, okay?”

Carl smiled. Tara couldn’t understand why he would be happy about being allowed to look after a baby at night. She could only suspect it had something to do with being treated as an adult. “I still don’t know who to share a room with.”

Tara suddenly had flashbacks to various high school class trips and the awkward job of finding a roommate when everyone else was already in best friend groups. “I’m up for sharing if that means I get to call dibs on sleeping in a real bed,” she said.  

Carl raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yeah, have you seen the bunk bed room? Just one word: real curtains.”

The corners of his mouth curved into a smile. “That’s two words. But alright with me.”

“I don’t know if that would be appropriate,” Rick replied, shooting Tara a ‘what the fuck’ look.

Tara gave him one right back. “Don’t be silly. Lesbian, remember?” If that was how she would come out to the new people, then so be it.

“But Carl isn’t.”

“A lesbian?” Tara’s eyebrows shot up. Maggie let out a small chuckle.

Rick shook his head. “No, well, I meant gay.”

_You really have no idea_ , Tara thought. To be fair, so far Carl and Cal had been experts at hiding how close they really were. No sneaking off together, no obvious staring at each other, no secret touches. Those two were good. Teenage Tara could have learned a lot from them.

Carl sighed. “Dad, please. So what if she’s a girl?”

It only took a little convincing from Michonne to make Rick change his mind, although by the end of the debate he still looked uncomfortable with the idea.

It was then decided that Rick would stay in the same house as Carl, taking the master bedroom because it was big enough to comfortably fit Judith’s cot. Michonne and Carol opted to share the remaining two single bedroom in the house.

It was easier to split the rest of them up in the other house because all the bedrooms had been left unfinished and therefore contained no set number of sleeping spaces.

Maggie gave her husband a tender smile. Suddenly, Tara was really glad not to be living in the same house as them, as they surely would take advantage of their new privacy as soon as possible.

 

* * *

 

It hurt thinking about this possibly being the last evening of all of them spending it together in House 1. After all the dishes had been washed, dried and put away – a messy situation with fifteen people in the kitchen – they had all migrated into the other house, like always. It would not stay this way.

“How do you do this?” Tara shook her head, glancing at the chess board in front of her, biting her lip. She’d basically lost. Again. “I swear, you’re cheating,” she said, giving Eugene her best accusatory glare.

“It’s not possible to cheat at chess,” Rosita remarked.

“Technically it is,” Eugene replied. “Although I should mention that the reason that I know of this fact is not that I am cheating. You will never meet a player who is going to treat an honest game with more respect than I am. Checkmate.”

Tara sighed and rolled her eyes, getting up from the table. “I’m done for tonight, chess master.” She joined the general bundle of people around the sofa area. Glenn was sitting on the sofa, his arms around Maggie, who was leaning against his chest. Next to them, Cal was scribbling something down on a run-down moleskin notebook. Damn, those things used to be expensive. A small baby laughter came from where Carl was flat lying on his back, entertaining his sister who was sitting on his chest.

Tara plopped down next to Glenn’s feet.

“There’s space on the sofa, you know,” Glenn remarked.

Tara gave him and Maggie a look. “I’m not joining that lovefest.” If she wanted to sit on the sofa she would have to squeeze in between Maggie and Cal. She didn’t know the teenager that well yet and saw no reason to invade his personal space. “Did Deanna talk to you about the next supply run yet?” she wanted to know.

“You can’t be serious,” Glenn said.

“I’m totally serious. We still seriously have to eat.”

Glenn shook his head. “You’re not going out there. Not after what happened last time. It’s been two days since you got out of the infirmary. And it might be really dangerous. Someone is out there setting traps.”

“Of course I’ll take time off to heal,” Tara said. “But after that I’ll join the team again.”

Maggie placed a hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure that’s the right choice?”

“I think you should ask Deanna about getting another job,” Glenn said.

“No. It’s my decision, only mine. Not yours, not Rick’s, not Deanna’s.”

“We just don’t want to see you hurt again,” Maggie said softly. “You scared the crap out of me the other day. You could have died. Noah did die. Almost all of my family did. I can’t lose you, too.”

“Maggie-“ The thought of anyone but her biological family caring much about felt strange, but it was a good strange – a strange that left a warm feeling in the region of her chest. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine.” She tried to smile.

Maggie shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together. For a moment, Tara thought she might cry. “I was still scared,” she said, slipping out of Glenn’s embrace and down from the sofa to the floor. A second later Tara found herself with an armful of Maggie.

“It’s okay to be scared,” Tara whispered into her shoulder. “I’m sorry I scared you.” She looked up at Glenn. “And I’m sorry for stealing your girlfriend.”

 

* * *

 

She didn’t permanently steal his girlfriend – that much became clear when the two of them left suspiciously early to catch some “sleep”.

Judith, who not long ago had squealed from joy when Carl had lifted her into the air to play air planes, was now fast asleep against his chest, her fist balled up in his shirt. “If you’re going back on supply runs, I want to go out there, too.”

Tara laughed. “Good luck convincing your father.” She moved off from the floor to the free space on the sofa. She didn’t want to spy on Cal, but when she saw the map next to him she got curious. “What are you doing?”

“Writing in his diary,” Carl said and grinned.

“It’s not a diary. Deanna wouldn’t let me keep the map, so I’m copying it,” Cal said without looking up from his notebook.

“The entire map?”

“No. Just writing down what is necessary to find a way to the closest safe space outside Alexandria,” Cal explained. “And then other places.”

“You want to leave?” Carl sounded almost hurt. Which was completely understandable – the thought of his boyfriend leaving obviously upset him.

Cal shook his head. “I don’t. But sometimes, leaving is what you have to do.”

Tara frowned. “How do you know which places are safe?”

“There’s no way of knowing for sure, but in theory some places are safer than others. You just need to learn to recognise the patterns.”

“You’ve done this before,” Tara said. “Studied maps, thinking of where to go.”

Cal nodded. “Eli and me.”

She watched him work for a while, but after some time her head fell against the armrest of the sofa, her eyes falling shut.

 

* * *

 

When she woke up again the room seemed darker. Only a small lamp in the corner of the room illuminated the scene in front of her: Cal, deep asleep at the other end of the sofa with the notebook and the map on his lap, Carl, sat between them without Judith but with a comic book. When Tara turned her head, she could make out Rick, Daryl and Michonne talk quietly in the kitchen area. The movement seemed to have alerted Carl that she was awake, as his eyes left the pages in front of him to look at her.

“He looks cute in his sleep,” Tara said and pointed at Cal, brown hair messed up and mouth slightly parted.

Carl rolled his eyes at her and went back to reading, but she detected a blush on his face.

“You’re really lucky,” Tara said and sat up a little on the sofa. “Don’t screw it up.”

Carl sighed. “Tara, he’s not-“

He stopped talking the second footsteps approached the sofa and Eli’s tall form appeared in front of them.

“Hello, Eli,” Tara said. She’d only spoken to him once before, yesterday, and it had been a short conversation.

Eli lifted up his finger to his lips before removing the notebook and map from Cal’s lap, then setting them down on the couch table. Slowly, he bent down and picked Cal up like he weighed nothing. He carried him like he was a little child and not a teenager, Tara thought to herself watching him carefully walk towards the bedroom on the ground floor. “What did you want to say?” she asked Carl.

Carl shook his head. “It’s not important,” he said and got up from the sofa. “I’m going to bed. See you?”

Tara smiled. “I’ll go upstairs in a minute.”

 

* * *

 

Around fifteen minutes later, after having said goodnight to Rick, Michonne and Daryl (the rest of the group had already gone to bed earlier) and having gotten ready in the bathroom, Tara finally stepped into her new bedroom. It was a small room, and there was only space for a bunk bed instead of two singles or a double. But what it lacked in size, it made up in feeling cosy and friendly. This room had potential. Without the lights on she couldn’t really see much, but she knew that the walls were a beautiful dark green colour in stark contrast to the light grey floor. The bed frame was made of dark, expensive-looking wood and couldn’t be any more different to the various bunkbeds Tara had encountered in hostels. Next to the window there even stood a small dresser, and on the opposite wall they had their own desk. Carl apparently had thrown his clothes over the desk chair. Tara did the same, and then crawled underneath the covers off the bottom bunk. “Good night, Carl,” she whispered quietly (in case he was already asleep).

“Night, Tara,” came the reply from above.

Everything was quiet after that. No snoring, no whispering, no coughing, none of the small sounds she had gotten used to sleeping in a room with a bunch of people. It felt odd, yet peaceful at the same time.

“If Noah didn’t die,” Carl whispered. “I think I would have shared a room with him.”

Tara couldn’t be upset with him for making her think about Noah again. He needed to be remembered. Sometimes she forgot about him, or forgot about his death, and then she felt incredibly guilty. Her mind really didn’t like to remember things that were too horrible to think about on daily basis without losing it. “No,” Tara replied. “You wouldn’t have. I would have wanted to share a room with him.”

“Well, I would have shared with Beth then. They wouldn’t let me at the prison, but I think she would have made a really good roommate.”

Beth, Maggie’s sister. Another wonderful person she would never get to meet. “I’m sorry,” Tara said.

“Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault she’s dead.”

Tara stared up at the bottom of Carl’s mattress. She closed her eyes. “Maybe it is.”

It was silent for a while. “What does that even mean?” Carl asked. “That’s bullshit. Why would you even- You shouldn’t say stuff like that. You didn’t even know Beth.” His voice was hard, angry.

Tara moved the blanket up to her chin. He didn’t know. He didn’t know how much hurt she had cost his family, Maggie’s family. “Do you know what the butterfly effect is?”

“No.”

“It means that small actions can have large consequences. There’s this Bradbury story we had to read at school: about a group travelling into the past to hunt a dinosaur. They weren’t supposed to leave the path to not change anything, but one did, and when they returned some things in their past were changed. He then discovered a crushed butterfly under the sole of his shoe,” she explained, taking in a deep breath. He needed to know. She couldn’t live in a room with him and keep lying to him. He was old enough to know. Otherwise, what sort of friend was she if she wasn’t honest with him? “Do you think Beth would still be alive if the attack on the prison hadn’t happened?”

Judging by the moments of silence that followed Carl had to think about that. “I don’t know. She never would have been abducted. The way she died wouldn’t have happened. We wouldn’t be here in Alexandria.” Some more silence. “But why would it be your fault that the governor attacked the prison?” He sounded confused.

It was now or never. Time to come clean. How would he react? Would he be all right with it, like Glenn and Maggie and his dad?

“One day, after being holed up in our apartment this entire time, a man arrived. Brian, his name was Brian. I didn’t like him at first, I didn’t trust him at all. But then, he went out to find oxygen tanks for my father, and later he saved my life by killing my dad when he turned into a walker. When it happened, I was just horrified. But now I know if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be alive right now.” She tried listening to the bed above her, but Carl was quiet. Part of her was relieved that she wouldn’t have to see his face when she told him the truth. “We went with him, found more people, created our own camp. My sister fell for him. I think it was because she could see how much he cared about my niece. I found a girlfriend. Everything was… I thought everything was going to be alright. Or at least better than before. But then a walker got into our camp and he insisted that it wasn’t safe anymore. Said he had found a prison, and that we would be safe there.”

The cat was out of the bag. Fingers clenched, Tara waited for his reaction. Maybe he was too mad to say anything. Fuck. But it wasn’t like she didn’t deserve it. “We went there to take it. Take it from other people. And I was there, I was holding a gun. Your father was trying to talk me out of it. And then Brian simply slit Maggie’s father’s throat and everything turned into a nightmare. I didn’t kill anyone though. I promise you, Carl, I didn’t. I just ran away and when I got back, everyone was dead. My girlfriend. My sister and my niece. Everyone I knew. But it was our fault for trusting that man and agreeing with him. So there it is. We attacked your family. Because of my actions the prison was destroyed and everything that happened afterwards to your group on the road, that’s on me.”

It was such a relief to speak those words, to tell that story. But now he knew. And maybe he would hate her. She would have to be okay with him hating her. The silence was making her more and more anxious about his reaction.

“That logic is bullshit,” Carl finally said. He did sound angry. “You have as much to do with Beth’s death than any of us have. If I had never been shot, we would never have found her family’s farm and maybe she would still be alive. It doesn’t mean it’s my fault though, or Otis’ – he’s the one who accidentally shot me.”

“You’ve never told me that story.”

“None of what happened to us on the road is your fault,” Carl insisted

“But I am responsible for you being on the road again after having found a home. Even if you don’t hold me personally responsible for Beth’s death, I was still part of the group who attacked the prison. I was the first to agree with Brian that we should do it. I’m part of the reason you all lost your home. And I’m sorry.”

“Tara-“

“No, shut up, I need to say this,” Tara started. “I’m sorry. I did not know what happened would happen. I did not know how incredible your family is and how much all of you would mean to me. I did not know Maggie’s father would die. I did not want him to die. I didn’t want anyone to die.”

Carl was quiet.

“I needed you to know because I can’t possibly share a room with you, be your friend, and keep lying to you. I think hiding the truth counts as lying. Glenn and Maggie know the truth, as well as your father, but I didn’t think he told you.”

“He didn’t.”

“But you deserve to know,” Tara said. “You’re old enough to not be treated like a kid, to make your own decisions about me.” The bed above her stayed quiet for such a long time Tara almost suspected that he had fallen asleep. “Carl?”

Carl sighed. “I need to- I need to think about this.”

“Okay,” Tara said quietly, staring up at the underside of his mattress. It was only fair. She needed to give him time, it was a lot to process all at once.

She tried to close her eyes and go to sleep, but sleep simply would not come. Minutes passed. By the cranking of the mattress above her, she could tell that Carl was still awake as well.

It was almost too dark in the room to make out the arm that was being lowered down the side of the top bunk, and for a split second Tara thought it wasn’t Carl’s arm, but a walker’s reaching for her. His hand was balled into a fist.

Tara didn’t know what to do. What was this? It looked like a very uncomfortable position to sleep in. The way his arm stretched out down towards the ground told her that this was not an accident, this was a deliberate movement. She felt so stupid when she finally understood. Forming her own fist with her hand, she moved her arm into the air until their knuckles bumped into each other. Tara smiled. It wasn’t forgiveness, not quite, but something close to it.  

“Good night, Tara,” she could hear faintly from the top bunk.

“Good night, Carl. Sleep well.” And thank you.

 

* * *

 

“Maggie?” Tara rubbed at her eyes. Her friend was the last person she had expected to walk in on in the bathroom this morning, sitting back against the tiles of the bathroom wall. Maggie didn’t even technically live in this house.

The other woman looked up, hands balled up in her lap. She almost looked- no she definitely had been crying a little. Her eyes were still red. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want Glenn to see me like this.”

Tara opened her mouth to say something, then slipped down to the floor to sit next to Maggie. What the hell had happened? “Did something happen- did you two have a fight?”

Maggie shook her head.

Tara watched her. It wasn’t like Maggie to cry if nothing was wrong.

“I can’t help thinking about Beth,” Maggie started. “Do you remember who she is?”

“Of course I do,” Tara whispered, trying to banish the memories from her confession to Carl last night. Thinking about her guilt and the attack on the prison now would do no one any good in this situation. “Your little sister.” The thought of Maggie still grieving her like this, crying alone in a bathroom, filled her with sadness. But of course, remembering the family that you lost would never go away.

“She loved Judith so much. Always carrying her, holding her… feeding her,” Maggie said. “She was so incredible. After Lori’s death Rick wasn’t himself. He could not be a proper father, and Judith’s mother was dead. So Beth took over, in a way. Daryl helped, too,” Maggie added. “He was the first one to feed her.” She smiled.

Tara wondered why Maggie was telling her all of this, but she didn’t dare ask. No matter why, it had to be important.

“I could see her, a few years from now. Having her own little one. She found a boyfriend at the prison, Zach, maybe he could have been a father, or someone else – doesn’t matter. All that matters is that if she hadn’t died, I am a hundred percent sure she would have had her own little one, and she would have loved him or her more than anything else in the world,” Maggie said.

Tara reached out to wipe away the new tears with the sleeve of the shirt she had slept in as Maggie still had her hands clutched in her lap and didn’t seem to be moving them any time soon.

“I just think it is so unfair that it’s never going to happen now. That she’s never going to experience that. She wanted to live a happy life with her family – it should not have been taken away from her, that future. Why should anyone be allowed to have that life when she couldn’t?” Maggie sounded almost angry now. “I’m pregnant, Tara.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry I'm not updating every week, but uni is keeping me busy and I want the chapters to be long enough. I'm trying to work on this story every day though! :)


	8. Holding Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter marks the beginning of the Carl/Cal plot. I know it's a super long chapter but definitely worth the read I hope :) I'm sorry about the delay in updating, I've had this chapter written since March but I never got around to editing it until this week. I certainly haven't abandoned this story, all this time I've been planning future chapters and scenes and I'm really excited to write this fanfic :)

 

His feet made a small bumping sound as they hit the carpet. One glance at Tara’s bed revealed that she must have gotten up earlier than him. She’d been doing that all week. Was she avoiding him? Maybe. Or maybe she just preferred getting up early, Carl thought as he changed into a (relatively) clean shirt. After putting on his jeans and fastening his belt, he walked up to the portable crib crammed into one side of the room. Judith was awake, having pulled herself to a standing position holding onto the crib. Her eyes followed her brother through the room.

“Morning, lil’ asskicker,” he greeted her, using Daryl’s nickname. She didn’t make a sound, but lifted one arm as if to wave at him, losing her balance and falling onto her butt in the crib. Carl chuckled and moved to pick her up. Judith happily leaned her head against his shoulder. Carl cuddled her a little closer and breathed in that sweet baby smell that he associated only with his little sister. Then he scrunched up his nose. She didn’t exactly smell that “sweet” this morning. Time for a much needed diaper change.

They didn’t exactly have a changing table in the bathroom, but placing her on top of the washing machine worked just fine. It was so much easier than changing her on the forest ground like they had to before.

Carl was about to unfasten the tabs of the dirty diaper when a sudden creak of the wooden floorboards of the hallway made him spin around to face the door. No matter how much he knew that he was safe in the house, he could not shake off his instincts after only a few weeks of being behind walls.

It was Eli who was strolling through the open bathroom door, shirtless and carrying a towel over his white, muscular shoulders. “You should never take your hand and eyes off her when you’re changing her. In those three seconds you were distracted she could’ve wriggled off the washing machine.”

Carl scowled and turned back to face Judith. “I’ve done this before,” he said, unfastening the tabs and removing part of the dirty diaper. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that Eli was still there – and still half-naked. “What do you want?”

“Someone’s using the downstairs bathroom. I just came up to take a shower.”

“What, with me in the room?” Carl asked incredulously, trying to focus on the task on hand and not think about what Eli had just said.

Eli looked at him like he’d lost his mind. Feeling a blush of embarrassment form on his face, he quickly bent down towards Judith to blow a raspberry onto her cheek, effectively hiding the colour of his face. Judith squealed in delight.

“I’ll just wait until you two are finished,” came Eli’s reply.

Carl pulled back, keeping a steady hand on his sister’s belly as he reached to grab a wet piece of cloth to clean her up.

“She’s so quiet. When Cal was her age, he was much more vocal,” Eli observed.

Judith kept silent most of the time, that was true. Carl didn’t know any other babies though and so he assumed that she was perfectly normal. His sister was smart – so smart she rarely made a fuss when she was changed or bathed. When she was really upset, she often wouldn’t cry or scream – only whimper in misery. “She’s perfectly normal,” Carl replied, fastening the taps of the new diaper.

He only noticed the dark shadow falling over him and his sister when it was too late and the gun was already being pulled out of the back of his jeans. Jaw tensing, Carl turned around, trying to shield Judith from Eli. Why couldn’t he even change a diaper without their life being threatened?

“You’re careless. I could have shot you just now.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you just do it? At least then I wouldn’t have to listen to your bullshit anymore.” Or look at your ridiculously attractive chest.

To his surprise Eli handed him back the gun. “You need to be more careful if you want to protect your sister. I really don’t understand your father’s reasoning for letting you have a weapon this dangerous.”

“You’re pissed off that I got your gun, I get it. Why give it back though?”

“There’s no point in taking it from you permanently. You would just run crying to your dad,” Eli replied, raising one eyebrow. “I think giving you the responsibility of protecting everyone in case something goes wrong is just careless. Not to mention you could get into serious trouble with the Alexandrians if they found out, thanks to the new rules. Why put a child through that? Your father’s an idiot for putting his son at risk like that.”

Carl glared at him. Blue eyes glared back at him. After a few seconds Carl turned back around to face Judith, tucking the gun back into his jeans. It took him a while to put the wriggling infant into her dark blue dress. Hoisting her up on his hip, he turned to face Eli again. He would just ignore the insults to his dad. That was the mature thing to do, although part of him really wanted to open Judith’s dirty diaper and empty its contents all over Eli’s head. “Where’s Cal?” he asked instead.

“Playing videogames with Mikey,” Eli replied. For the first time, Carl saw him smile. It was shocking how genuine it looked. “That boy seems to be completely normal, considering. And Cal could really use a friend his age.”

“Yeah. Enjoy your shower.” Giving Eli one last glare, Carl stepped out of the bathroom. He shut the door with more force than was necessary. Judith looked up at her brother with big, fearful eyes. Carl quickly pressed a kiss to her hair to reassure her that she was alright.

 

* * *

 

“Be safe out there.”

“No, you be safe in here, Michonne. Keep an eye out for trouble,” Rick replied.

“I always do. No need to remind me that only one of us actually went to the police academy,” Michonne said and smiled.

Rick slammed the trunk of the car shut. “I’m not doing the reminding right now. That’s you.”

Carl could see Michonne roll her eyes. “Everything will be fine here at home. I’ll make sure that everyone will be safe, especially Carl and Judith. Won’t take my eye off them.”

Hopefully she would forget all about that promise as soon as Rick, Daryl and Glenn had left. Michonne watching his whereabouts all day would seriously interfere with his plans for today.

Rick nodded, then stepped towards his son. “Are you still going to ignore me for not letting you come with us or are you going to say let me say goodbye?”

Carl rolled his eyes, but handed his sister over to Michonne so he could give his father a hug goodbye. This mission could be dangerous. If it was just a walk in the park, his dad wouldn’t have been so against the idea of him joining the team.

“I love you, Carl,” Rick said. “You be good, alright? Stay safe.”

Carl nodded, then pulled back. “Bring back something decent to eat?” He knew they might not come back with too much food as this was mainly a scouting mission. The former supply runner team was in bits and pieces. After Noah’s death the group was reluctant to go on missions with the Alexandrians, and Tara was still recovering from her injury. In the end, Rick had decided that he would go himself, along with Daryl, Glenn and Aaron – one of the few Alexandrians they seemed to trust. Probably because Daryl seemed to think he was alright. Meanwhile, Michonne would be the only officer left in town. Carl had pleaded with his dad to let him go, but no matter which argument he used, his Rick had been vehemently against him joining. Still, as a consolidation he’d been allowed to help by taking Judith for the night and making sure their father got some good, uninterrupted sleep the night before his run. “Love you, too, dad.”

Rick gave him shoulder one final pat before walking over towards his daughter – held safely in Michonne’s arms – to kiss her goodbye. “And I love you, sweetheart.”

To Carl’s left Aaron and Eric were engaging in a long kiss goodbye. Next to them, Maggie was hugging Glenn so tightly her arms seemed to be swallowing him.

Daryl looked at the displays of intimate affection, then averted his eyes. “We need to get moving so we don’t lose the sunlight.” He didn’t hug anyone, but nodded into the direction of the rest of the group.

Maggie took a step back, but didn’t loosen her grip on Glenn’s arms. She whispered something that Carl couldn’t make out before leaning forward to give her husband one last kiss.

Rick and Glenn took their seats in the front of the car while Aaron and Daryl shared the backseat.

There was absolutely no reason to feel anxious. His dad had gone on so many missions, he’d survived impossible situations, there was no way a simple scouting mission with three other experienced men would be the end of him. Zero chance. Still, he would have felt so much better if he could have gone with them.

Watching the car drive down the road, Carl could see Tara walk up and stand next to Maggie, her right arm brushing against Maggie’s left. Ever since Tara confessed to him, she had been closer than ever to Maggie, thus confirming his theory that she was avoiding him. But what if it was something else? Maggie had been acting weird, not smiling as much or being irritatingly sweet with Glenn.

The rough, metallic sound of Sasha closing the gate sounded impossibly loud in the quiet that was left behind.

Maggie’s fingers entwined with Tara’s. Carl frowned, staring at the two for a moment before making his way back to the house.

 

* * *

 

“Are you cheating on Glenn with Tara?” Now was the perfect time to confront her. No one else was around – as long you didn’t count Judith – so if he was right no one else would hear about it for now.

“What?!” Maggie’s eyebrows were visibly raised. The plastic spoon with applesauce that had been approaching Judith’s mouth stopped mid-air.

“Are you cheating-“ Carl repeated.

“I’ve heard you. Why would you think that?” Maggie shook her head. Judith let out a small whine, her chubby hand reaching out to grasp the spoon, only managing to smear the contents over her fingers. Maggie didn’t even notice, staring at Carl. “You don’t look like you’re joking. I don’t understand how you could think that of me. I love Glenn very much.” Looking up into her eyes, he could see that his question had hurt her.

“I’m sorry,” he quickly said, looking down to study the patterns of wood on the table. “But something is up. You’ve been really close since last week, and you were holding her hand-“

“That’s what friends do,” Maggie said. “I care about her and she cares about me.”

“I understand,” Carl said.

Maggie sighed, her attention coming back to the baby on her lap. She filled the spoon again and started feeding Judith, trying to keep the sticky fingers from reaching for her hair.

Carl went back to eating his own breakfast, but the issue was still bugging him. “Something is up, isn’t it? I know Tara is probably avoiding me after last week, but that won’t explain you acting weird.”

“Tara is just trying to give you space,” Maggie replied. “Space and time to think about what she told you.”

So Tara had been talking to Maggie about her confession to him. That was good, wasn’t it? “Okay. But what is going on? Have you had a fight with Glenn? You two don’t look like you’re fighting.” He couldn’t help but ask all these questions. If something was wrong, it was important he knew. It wasn’t good to keep secrets from the group. Secrets could blow up and hurt everybody.

Maggie shook her head. “We haven’t, and you are way too nosy for your own good. Maybe… maybe there is something going on. And if I wanted to tell you, I would.”

Carl nodded. “Okay.” He tried to not let it show on his face that the curiosity was killing him. Taking one last bite of his breakfast, he stashed the plate in the sink. “I’ll go see what Cal is up to.”

Maggie smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Was Maggie still mad at him for thinking she cheated? “Have fun. I’ll stick this stinky apple monster into the bath while you’re gone.” Tickling Judith’s side caused the baby to shriek loudly.

 

* * *

 

Thankfully Nicholas wasn’t home when Carl arrived at Mikey’s house. With the front door unlocked he simply slipped into the house and made his way upstairs. Even if he hadn’t known which room belonged to Mikey, it would’ve become clear by the loud sounds of pistol fire coming from one side of the house. The wooden floor beneath him creaked as he stepped into the room, but it was only Cal who turned his head away from the TV screen. Carl suspected that all that time spent outside the walls made him more attentive to sounds that indicated someone or something was coming. Cal gave him a bright smile from across the room where he was sitting on the floor in front of the TV. Carl’s own smile turned into a grin when the other teenager was immediately killed on screen for not paying attention to the game for a moment.

“Damn! You’re even worse than usual,” Mikey mocked him, turning his head towards the boy sitting next to him on the floor. Finally, he spotted Carl in the doorway. Mikey’s dark, bushy eyebrows went up in surprise. “Wow, hey, Carl, ever heard of knocking?” He paused the game.

“Why?” Carl asked, confused. “You probably wouldn’t have heard me.” 

Mikey shrugged. “You’re right. Hey, wanna join us? Okay, stupid question, why else would you be here?”

Carl stayed in the doorway. “I just wanted to see if Cal was free.”

Cal shrugged. “Course I am – there is nothing much to do in here. What did you want to do?”

He hadn’t been completely confident that Cal would want to hang out, and so the answer left him feeling pleased. “Thought we could continue our training from last week. It didn’t seem fair you never got your chance. Also, I really want to show you stuff about knives.”

Cal’s blue eyes smiled at him from across the room. “I’m in, let’s get Ron and Enid?”

Carl was reluctant to get the others involved after what had happened. He could easily keep an eye on Cal, but all of the other teens? “I thought it could just be the two of us… ‘cause I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Cal got up from the floor, then held out his hand to Mikey, who took it to pull himself up. “Since Ron still hates you maybe it would be less tense if he and Enid stay here,” Cal agreed. He gazed at Carl, then quickly flicked his eyes towards Mikey and back.

Carl stared at him, confused. What was he trying to tell him?

Cal repeated the movement, then stared at him intently. Carl rolled his eyes. He had no clue what the other boy was trying to tell him.

Cal sighed. “Mikey, do you wanna come with us?”

Mikey glanced up at Carl, who desperately tried to keep his annoyance from showing on his face. Ron nearly died the last time he took him behind the walls, there was no way he was putting Mikey in unnecessary danger. Was there a way to make Mikey stay without sounding like an asshole? There was nothing wrong with the other boy, but he didn’t know a lot about him. Not that he knew that much about Cal, either, but at least he’d seen Cal a bunch of times every day since his arrival in Alexandria. “Right, you can come with us, if you want. But you don’t need to if you’d rather stay behind the walls,” Carl said. Fuck it, he wasn’t going to make everyone hate him by saying no.

“Are you sure? You don’t seem so thrilled,” Mikey said.

Fuck, faking enthusiasm wasn’t his forte. Carl shrugged. “No, it’s fine, you can come, but you need to stay close to us. We can’t split up.”

Mikey answered him with a faint smile. “Then we should go now, so we’ll make it back in time for school. Got your… knives, or whatever?”

“Yeah, I do.” He was hiding more than enough knives in his belt, more than he would usually carry. And of course, there was the gun hidden at the back of his jeans, but he couldn’t know about that. Unless one of the others had shared his secret.

 

* * *

 

Walking into anyone while trying to sneak out was the worst that could happen, but – with Alexandria being such a small community – it was inevitable. When Jessie stopped them in the street to ask what they were up to, Cal quickly made up a story about going back into their house to read comic books. Thank god Jessie bought his lie – even though Carl knew that Cal wasn’t into comic books at all – saying that Ron and Enid were doing the same at their house right now.

“Yeah, I’m certain they are _reading comics_ , and I’m also certain I don’t want to see it,” Cal muttered as soon as Jessie was out of earshot.

Mickey snickered. Carl tried his best to not turn red. “Do you really think that they-“

“They’re sixteen,” Mikey pointed out. “And they’re lucky enough to not be alone.”

Carl felt awkward thinking about the things the other two teenagers might be getting up to at the moment. “Let’s go before anyone catches us.” He looked left, then he looked right and instead of walking up the stairs of House 1, he marched around it towards the wall of Alexandria. Mikey’s and Cal’s steps ruffled through the high grass behind him.

“Thanks for the mental image of Ron and Enid getting it on,” Cal complained.

Mikey laughed. “You’re welcome. Ugh, of course Ron is the guy who would get laid in the apocalypse, and here I am, never even been kissed.”

“Aw, I’d kiss you, Mikey,” Cal said

Carl rolled his eyes, reaching out to pull himself up the metal wall. If they kept being this noisy, someone was bound to hear them from the house.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” Mikey replied.

Carl’s shoes made a thud sound as they made contact with the forest ground. Even though this time Cal did much better climbing over the high metal wall, Carl held out his hands to help him down.

“Thanks,” Cal said, giving him a fleeting smile, then let go of his hands.

Carl watched Mikey make his way down the wall. He wasn’t doing too bad considering this was his first time sneaking out like this. “Wow,” Mikey whispered, tilting his head up towards the sky, then turning around. “It’s been- I can’t remember the last time I was standing in a forest. The ones at home look so much more different.”

“Where’s home for you?” Carl asked as he started his journey into the forest. They needed to get further away from Alexandria, but without Enid’s navigation skills he’d have to be careful not to get lost.

“Orlando, Florida,” Mikey replied, then shrugged. “But I guess this is my home now. Where are you from?”

“I’m from Georgia,” Carl told him quietly.

Cal came up behind his shoulder. “Where are we going?”

Carl stopped and turned around to look at him, expecting him to look nervous. But no, Cal wasn#t giving off any signs of feeling scared or uncomfortable out in the forest. His eyes pretty much lit up with excitement. Carl couldn’t keep one side of his mouth from quirking up into a smile, both because Cal’s mood was contagious and because just at this moment he realised that Cal probably felt just as trapped inside the walls as he and Enid did. “I’m trying to find a place where we can practice, far enough so no one will hear us,” he said. “Just follow me.”

In theory, if he just walked in a straight line away from the wall, it should not be too difficult to find the way home again. In reality, that plan proved to be more difficult as planned. There wasn’t really a path that followed a straight line. The boys constantly had to step over stones and logs and cut a path through the bushes. No one spoke for a while, Carl focused on not getting lost or embarrassing himself by tumbling over a log. The two boys behind him followed after him without complaining.

Though finally, Mikey broke the silence. “Don’t you hate me for what my father did to Glenn?” he asked, a little breathless.

Carl frowned. That question literally came out of nowhere. How long had it been on Mikey’s mind? “No, why would I? It was your father who attacked Glenn, not you. It would be stupid to hate you because of what your dad did.”

“Ron hates you because of what your father did,” Mikey retorted.

“But I’m not Ron,” Carl said, kicking a small dead branch out of the way. “I don’t really like your father, but you don’t resemble him much.”

“You really don’t look like him,” Cal added. Carl nodded. He would have never guessed that Nicholas was Mikey’s father. Mikey couldn’t look more different even if he tried with his warm, chocolate-brown eyes and thick and shaggy hair compared to Nicholas’ small blue fish eyes and curly hair.

Mikey shrugged. “To be fair, sometimes I’m not sure if I like my father. He’s an asshole sometimes. But not like Ron’s dad. He’s just selfish. And distant. From time to time he looks at me like he’s surprised that I’m there, like he’s not sure where I’ve come from.”

“I’m sure he loves you though,” Carl said, stepping over a log. Every dad had to love his children. That was how the universe worked. Ron’s father wasn’t really a dad. He was just a monster.

“Maybe. I don’t know. He’s never said it.”

“No offense, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would say it a lot,” Carl replied. “Doesn’t mean that deep down he doesn’t care about you. Like, Daryl. I know he cares about us, about my dad and Judy and Carol and the others. But he would never in his life say those three words to any of us.”

“Daryl’s kind of scary,” Mikey replied. “But he seems cool. Not my father. All my life, I’ve imagined what he would be like, and when I finally met him, all those thoughts felt like such a lie. Like, it couldn’t be him.”

“When did you first meet him?” Cal wanted to know.

For a moment, Carl could hear nothing but the small puffs of breathing coming out of all three mouths, but after some time had passed, Mikey began to speak. “After- after mum was bitten and shot herself. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t leave the apartment because everything was crazy out there and I didn’t know where to go. So I took her phone – we still had signal when that happened – to call his number. I’ve never seen her call him, ever, but she used to tell me to contact him if something ever happened to her.”

Carl stopped for a second so the two boys could catch up to his fast pace. Turning his head, he watched Cal put a hand on Mikey’s shoulder as they walked.

“It was a miracle that the number still worked and that he picked up. He promised to come get me. It took weeks. By the time he got to me, I had gone through almost all of my supplies, but I was too scared to go outside. After a while, I thought he wouldn’t come. The power went out and I couldn’t call him anymore.”

Carl tried to imagine what it must have been like to stay locked inside an apartment with his dead mother for weeks. He couldn’t.

Mikey chewed on the insides of his cheek. “When I first saw him I couldn’t think much else besides ‘holy fuck, he’s here’. He told me that there was a safe-zone in Virginia and that he would take me there, so at first I didn’t care what he was like. But on the road, he didn’t talk much. He never seemed happy that I was there. He didn’t even ask about mum.”

“He must have known what happened,” Carl mumbled. “Most people don’t like to talk about the people they have lost.” He stopped in his tracks and turned towards Cal and Mikey. “I don’t,” he added faintly.

Cal looked at him. “Why have we stopped?”

“We don’t need to go further, that’s just a waste of time,” Carl replied, pulling out one of his knives. “I thought we could start practicing now.” Mikey held out his hand, so he gave it to him. Slowly, he took out a second knife and handed it to Cal, who held it up a little, his thumb moving over the wooden handle, then the metallic edge. “Careful with that,” Carl warned.

Cal gave him a look. “Stop trying to be like my brother. I’m not seven.”

Carl chuckled. “Sorry.”

“The boy that you killed, did you kill him with one of these knives?” Cal asked out of the blue, glancing up from the knife he was holding

Carl was startled. How did Cal find out about that? Then it dawned on him that he mentioned it to Ron during the fight. “No, I shot him,” he said in a firm voice, expecting Cal to look disgusted or freaked out.

He didn’t. Not at all. Maybe a little fearful, with a small hint of curious. “Did he deserve it?”

Carl bit his lip. “At the time, I thought he did. Maybe he didn’t. But I thought it was what I had to do. I would do it again. Who knows what damage he could have done.”

“You can’t punish someone for something they might do,” Mikey said.

Carl’s eyes flickered to him for a second, then turned back to Cal. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. All he wanted to do was start the lesson.

“When you need to kill a walker, you stab them in the head. If you get them anywhere else, that won’t do anything to them. It’s easier when their brains are already soft, but if they’re not, go for the point between their eyebrows,” Carl told them, reciting what he’d learned so far from the other members of the group and what he had picked up on the road. “Sometimes it’s easier to kick them down and then stab them when they’re on the ground, though.”

Cal scrunched up his eyebrows. “I thought you were showing us how to fight with knives.”

“I am. If we run into a walker, you can practice,” Carl said matter-of-fact.

“No, I meant human-on-human fighting. Like what we did last week.”

Carl shook his head. “I don’t really go around stabbing humans. Do I look like I do?”

Cal laughed at that, taking a few steps closer. “But you must know some things.”

_My dad never sat me down and gave me the ‘and this is how you kill a person’ talk_ , Carl thought. _He just lets me watch when he slaughters them himself_. “You could threaten someone by holding a knife to their neck. For a quick kill, slicing the throat would be pretty effective, if that’s what you want.”

Mikey looked at him, head tilted to the side. “Why wouldn’t you want to kill them quickly?”

“Quick doesn’t hurt so much.”

Mikey’s eyes widened. Carl let out a small sigh. Scaring him like this was the last thing he had wanted from this trip.

Cal pulled his eyes away from Carl, taking in Mikey’s expression. “We could just show Mikey what Ron taught us last time, right? Seems like a good thing to start with,” he suggested.

“Yeah. Don’t forget the shirts,” Carl reminded him.

Cal nodded and pulled a shirt and a hoodie off over his head, balling the material up in his hands. His skin was just as pale as Eli’s, though he was leaner and far less muscular. Compared to Eli’s broad and square shoulders, Cal’s looked more round, kind of soft.

“We can’t get dirt on them or else everyone would get suspicious,” Carl explained when Mikey looked a bit clueless. He waited for Mikey to take off his sweater and before he, together with Cal, showed him how to make a good fist.

As Cal and Mikey got into their first fist, Carl used the distraction to get shirtless as well without revealing his gun. Even though almost all of the group of teenagers already knew about it, technically they weren’t supposed to know. He saw no reason to show the gun to Mikey. Turning back towards the two teenagers, he watched the way they fought. Mikey had a small advantage, being taller and older, but it wasn’t like he was built like the hulk and Cal moved fast. While his own fight with Ron fight had been forceful and aggressive, this one looked more playful. It was clear both were holding back in order not to hurt each other.

“Ha!” Cal held his hands up in victory after having successfully used his leg to trip the other boy, causing him to fall face-first to the leaf-covered dirt ground. “I win.”

Mikey groaned, rolling around. “You don’t. I could still get back up and fight you, asshole.”

“We can’t very well fight until one of us dies or falls unconscious.” Cal retorted. “I win. Carl, did I win?”

Carl rolled his eyes. “Okay, you won. That one fight.” He had to smile at the triumphant expression on Cal’s face, holding his hand up for a high-five.

The other boy stepped closer, but instead of returning the high-five, he lunged at him, hands clasping at his shoulders. Before he even had time to process what was happening, he found himself tumble to the forest ground. He landed on his back, Cal straddling his legs and gripping at his arms so he could not move away.

“I win again,” Cal announced, smirking down at Carl.

“Pure luck. Also, you had the element of surprise on your side,” Carl retorted. If the other boy wasn’t a friend, he could just move his knee upwards and kick him in the balls. But Cal wasn’t someone he wanted to hurt like that. “Fight’s not over, loser,” he added and yanked his arm back as hard as he could to pull himself free.

What followed was a dirty fight of epic proportions. At least according to Mikey’s description when he started commenting as if he was at a sporting event. Both boys tried to win the upper hand and absolutely would not let the other win the fight. His back hitting the dirt again, then pushing Cal over so he was on top again, Carl was grateful they’d taken off their shirts since those would have become a dirt-stained mess during after this tumbling around. He wasn’t too sure his jeans were going to survive.

Carl let out a yelp of pain. “Why the fuck would you pull my hair?” he grumbled and yanked Cal’s fingers out of his hair.

“Your fault for letting it grow- ow!”

Carl grinned. While Cal’s hair was a lot shorter than his own, it was still not completely immune to being pulled at. “Who’s been cutting your hair on the road?” he asked, trying to shake off the hand that was trying to grab his arm again.

Pushing at his chest, hard, Cal managed to roll them around again. “Eli. Doesn’t hurt to carry scissors around, you know. You should try them some time.”

“While the fighting definitely competes with that of professional, very manly wrestlers, the conversation has reached the level of a pair of girls in middle school,” Mikey commented from somewhere. Carl couldn’t actually see him with Cal hovering on top of him.

“Shut up!” Cal turned his head towards Mikey – the perfect moment for Carl to get the upper hand again. His hands held onto the other boy’s sides as he pushed him to the ground. Cal let out a small yelp as his back hit the hard forest ground.

Carl moved to sit on his thighs, effectively trapping his legs so he wouldn’t be able to try any of the dirty and painful tricks Carl had been thinking about earlier. His left hand grasped Cal’s bony wrist, pinning it down above his head. “I win,” he announced, a little out of breath. He had to bend forward to keep the arm trapped over his head, and the metal of Cal’s belt dug into the bare skin of his stomach.

The knife came out of nowhere. Well, it didn’t actually violate the laws of physics, but Carl hadn’t noticed Cal carry it in his belt during the fight. And even if he had, he wouldn’t have anticipated him using it. The sharp edge of the knife barely made contact with his skin, but it still felt incredibly cold against his neck.

“No, _I_ win,” Cal replied, a smug smile plastered all over his face.

Damn, Carl thought. He really should have grabbed Cal’s second arm. Now it was too late. Unless… yes, two could play this game. In any real situation, reaching for his own knife could have been deadly, but he was fairly certain Cal wouldn’t actually slice his throat if he moved. A second later, he had his own knife pressed against Cal’s pale neck. “Now we’re even,” Carl said.

“I guess we are,” Cal replied quietly, his eyes glancing up at the other boy. Up close, Carl could make out that they weren’t brown like he sometimes thought, but a very dark blue-grey colour.

A shiver went down Carl’s spine. Being shirtless in the forest had not been an issue when they’d been in the middle of wrestling, but now he could feel the cold breeze hit his back.

Cal’s skin felt warm though, Carl noted, not letting go of the other teenager’s wrist. They were so close he could see his pale chest go up and down with every breath.

The blade against Carl’s neck was moving just a tiny bit as Cal’s hand was shaking a little, making the metal scratch lightly against his neck. Not enough to pierce his skin though or draw blood. Carl barely noticed that he was biting down on his lip, his eyes glancing down at where he had Cal pinned down on his back.

A few seconds passed before he suddenly became aware of the warm, tingling feeling that should _not be there,_ not at all. But the pressure couldn’t be mistaken, and yes, this was really happening. This would have been uncomfortable and annoying in any other situation, but straddling his friend, his own hips pressed against Cal’s thighs to keep him from escaping – this was catastrophic. Because Cal could absolutely not feel what was happening right now. The panic did nothing to slow down his erection, not at all, in fact it kept growing steadily and he needed to get off him _now_ or else-

“You okay?” Mikey asked him after he had let go of Cal and moved to stand so quickly he’d accidentally almost stabbed Cal with his knife.

Carl nodded. “Yeah, um, just remembered we really have to get back in time if we don’t wanna miss class. And we can’t, they would notice.” He turned around and grabbed his shirt. While he was pretending to tug it into the front of his jeans, he sneakily tried to adjust himself. Fully dressed, sheriff’s hat on his head and pretty confident the others would not notice his state unless they really paid attention to that area of his body (and why would they?), he turned back around. Mikey was already wearing his sweater again, slipping into his shirt and reaching for his hoodie. He quickly glanced away. If Cal had noticed what had happened to his body and was disgusted by him, he did not want to see it. “Guys, come on.”

“Why do you want to go back all of the sudden?” Cal asked him.

Carl started walking into the direction they had come from, confident that the other two would follow him. “Don’t really want them to know we go out here. Do you?”

“No, but we could have stayed a few more minutes. I don’t think it’s that late yet,” Cal replied.

Carl didn’t answer, just glanced over his shoulder to make sure Mikey and him were keeping up. Cal had a point, but it wasn’t like he could just tell him the truth. What even was the truth? What had happened? _Sorry, but we have to leave right now because I… I got hard at the most inconvenient time ever and didn’t want you to notice._ Carl couldn’t picture saying that. _But it’s not like it was because of you or anything._

 

* * *

 

By his estimates they had made it halfway back to Alexandria when Carl suddenly heard a rustle in the line of trees next to their makeshift path. He turned back around to the other teenagers, reaching for his knife. They looked startled, so they had heard it, too, but they did not pull the knives they were carrying. “Stay back,” he ordered.

“No, Carl-“

“What?” He glanced back at Cal, annoyed. They couldn’t spare walkers this close to their home. And if it was a loner, killing it would be no risk at all.

“I saw it. It’s not a walker. It’s a cat,” Cal told him, slowly dropping to his knees.

When Mikey did the same, Carl followed their example, hoping that the other boy was right and not just imagining things. There was no way the cat would go anywhere near them though. It had to be pretty skittish and scared, surviving in the woods while hunted by predators they hadn’t previously known. “How is it still alive?” he whispered. “Daryl said he saw a horse being killed by walkers, so it’s not like they leave animals alone.”

“Buttons,” Mikey said, sounding sad. “I don’t know, cats are fast.”

“So are horses,” Carl pointed out.

“Cats are smaller though, they’re agile. And they can climb trees,” Mikey said.

Cal shushed them. Then, he started calling out to it in a calm, friendly tone. When he promised the cat that she would be safe, Carl glanced at him. Cal probably couldn’t keep himself safe, let alone a cat, but he sounded pretty convincing. If Carl was the cat, he would have come out a long time ago.

Finally, the bush rustled and a paw stepped forward. Another paw followed, and then slowly a big tabby cat wobbled towards Cal’s hand, giving it a tentative sniff. When it decided that the teenager was very much not going to sink his teeth into its flesh, it stayed. Slowly, Cal moved his hand to stroke its chin.

“I’ve never seen a cat this fat,” Mikey whispered from beside Cal.

The cat, indeed, was huge. It looked like it had swallowed a watermelon.

“Hey, she’s not fat. She’s just pregnant,” Cal said, gazing at her stomach.

Mikey reached out to stroke the back of her head. “So there must be a male cat nearly.”

“He could be long gone though, right?” Carl asked. “Are cats pregnant for nine months?”

Cal shook his head. “More like a little bit over two months.”

Carl stared at him. “How do you know that?” Cal didn’t strike him as the kind of person who read random cat facts in his spare time.

“Grew up in the countryside. Barn cats get pregnant all the time,” Cal explained.

Carl tentatively reached out to touch the cat’s soft fur. “She’s not going to last long out here when she has her kittens. Poor thing.”

Cal stared at him like he was crazy. “Yeah, but we’re taking her with us, right?”

Carl swallowed. The thought of leaving the cat behind just so she and her kittens would be eaten by walkers seemed cruel. “It’s not like we can just take her back with us. The others wouldn’t let us, we don’t have the luxury to feed pets. Also, if we show up with a cat, they’ll know we snuck out.” He didn’t mention the possibility that Daryl would turn her into dinner. After all, they had eaten stray dogs on the road before. Carl felt sick thinking back to that moment.

“We can’t leave her,” Mikey said. “She likes us.” To prove his point, he continued ruffling the fur at her back until she flopped onto her side in front of them. “She’s not been around humans for a while, she probably missed getting petted.”

“I don’t wanna leave her to die.” Carl sighed. “I just don’t know what’s gonna happen if we take her. Could we even get her over the wall?”

“We should try it at least,” Cal said. “Look, there’s a tattoo in her ear. Means she used to belong to someone. Someone who’s now dead. We owe them to look after their cat. Please, Carl?”

Carl gazed from the cat’s green eyes to Cal’s blue ones. Blue, pleading eyes. He sighed. “Fine. I don’t want to be the reason she dies. So we try sneaking her inside. But if we get caught, I’m blaming you.”

Despite that threat the other teenager beamed at him. “Thank you. Let’s go?”

 

* * *

 

In the end it was Carl who took the responsibility of carrying the cat through the forest. Maybe she would have followed them on the ground, but they didn’t want to take the risk of something spooking her that would make her run off. Carl was still amazed that she tolerated being carried around, her front paws resting on his shoulder. It was almost like carrying Judith, except his sister was less hairy.

Carl stopped right in front of the wall, head tilted upwards. There was no way any of them could climb up while carrying the cat. It was just too high.

“Someone needs to go in with her through the gate,” Cal said, as if he was reading his mind.

“We have people guarding the gate now,” Carl pointed out. “There’s no way we can just walk through.”

After a small debate they decided that Mikey would take the cat while Carl and Cal would go over the wall and distract whoever was on guard. It was a risky plan, but Mikey said he’d take the blame if they were caught.

Carl watched Cal climb up the wall before following him. After arguing for a split second about how to distract Michonne, who appeared to be standing guard today, Cal’s suggestion won: he would tell her that Carl wanted to speak to her, while Carl would wait in the house and come up with a random excuse.

“How am I supposed to just come up with a reason to talk to her?” Carl complained. “I mean, yeah, we talk, but I don’t know anything that’s this important. Also, if I wanted to speak to her, I could just go to her instead of asking you to get her to come. She’s gonna know something is up.”

“Stop blowing holes in my perfect plan.” Cal sighed. “Do you have a better suggestion? And no, your plan to tell her that Maggie wants to speak to her was shit. As soon as she leaves and finds out Maggie is surprised to see her, we’re busted.”

Carl had to agree that he had no better plan and so the two of them parted, Carl on his way into House 1 while Cal set out to talk to Michonne at the gate. Cal bit his lip, nervous that the plan wouldn’t work. What if Michonne wouldn’t let Cal take over guard duty for a couple of minutes? Mikey and Cal would be devastated if they had to leave the cat out in the woods to die.

 

* * *

 

The house was surprisingly empty with the exception of Eli lingering near the couches. Carl tried to ignore the dark look he was shooting him (was it just his imagination or did Eli look more murderous today?) and made himself a glass of water in the kitchen. Hopefully Michonne wouldn’t sense something was up.

“Carl?”

When Michonne’s voice called out to him, he nearly dropped his glass. And then cursed at himself for not using the time spent waiting for her to come up with a topic of conversation. He was so damn stupid sometimes. “Yeah?”

“Cal said you wanted to speak to me. It sounded urgent. Is something wrong?” When she stepped forward there was nothing but concern in her eyes and Carl immediately felt guilty for trying to trick her.

“Nothing wrong,” he quickly said, hoping she would stop looking so worried. “I just-“ He needed to come up with something _now_. “I wanted to ask you to talk to dad about letting me on a mission. ‘Cause he listens to you and if you tell him that you think it will be alright he might let me go.” _Perfect_.

Michonne sighed. “Carl…”

“No, please think about it.” He needed her to stay put for a few more moments in case Mikey hadn’t snuck in yet. “I can handle myself. You’ve seen it. Inside the walls, I’m so useless.”

“Then we should find you things to help out with in here. We always need more people to help out with the cooking and the laundry, and I’m sure Eli could need some help with the farm or garden we’re planning to build.”

“Then I’ll help with that too! I don’t care, just let me get out there like the others,” Carl replied. “I don’t mean send me on the most dangerous missions you can think of, but there’s gotta be some that are okay.”

Michonne looked him in the eyes. He gazed away, in case she could read minds. “It’s not up to me, but your dad. It’s his decision alone. If you really want to go out there you should speak to him.”

“But he’ll say no,” Carl protested. “He cares about what you think so I don’t see the big deal in you talking to him about it.”

“Maybe he won’t, maybe he will. The point is, he should make that decision on his own, not influenced by anyone. I know you can handle yourself out there, but I’m not willing to get involved in sending you out there,” Michonne spoke. “Anything could happen. You could walk into a giant herd, or meet bad people. Or something else that ends your life. I know that the reason you are still alive today is mostly due to you being capable of taking care of yourself, but it’s partially due to luck, too. And one day that luck could run out. Don’t force me to be the person responsible for that.”

Carl sighed. At first, the conversation had just been about distracting Michonne, but now it was more. He did really want to go out and on missions. Michonne cared about him, but she couldn’t protect him forever. “Okay. You don’t have to say anything to him. But I will ask him.”

Michonne gave him a tender smile. “That is probably for the best, Carl. Now, I need to get back to the gate. Cal has never stood guard before, I shouldn’t leave him alone there for too long.”

Carl tentatively returned her smile and started washing his used glass in the sink. He should probably slowly make his way towards the garage they had class in. School in Alexandria was even more boring than school before this all began. He’d rather spend the entire afternoon changing poopy diapers than sit in the stuffy garage for two hours with the other teenagers. Rosemary was teaching them Shakespearean poems at the moment and he really couldn’t care less.

Upstairs in his room he grabbed one of his comic books and started reading. If he accidentally forgot to go, then that wasn’t his fault, right? It could happen to anyone. Sadly, that plan was destroyed by Maggie walking into his room and shooing him out of the house (“I’m not getting on your father’s bad side by letting you skip class, now go already!”). It was possible she was still mad at him for doubting her loyalty to Glenn.

 

* * *

 

As he made his way towards the garage he could see Mikey and Cal walk down the street. Carl increased his speed until he’d caught up with them. “How did your mission go?”

Cal turned towards him, a bright smile on his face. There was a slight hint of dimples in his cheeks when he grinned. “Your distraction worked really well. Mikey had plenty of time to sneak inside the gates.”

“My dad was out so we had no problem sneaking the cat inside. She’s in my bathroom now in case he enters my room. We gave her some water, but we still need to find food for her,” Mikey said.

“We’re going to break into the pantry tonight,” Cal announced.

Breaking into the pantry? That sounded like the worst idea possible. “We?” Carl asked.

Cal shrugged. “Well, just me. The sneaking in and out is the riskiest part. It’s a one-man job.”

“Cal-“ Carl started.

“I’ve done this stuff before.” Cal looked at him. “I can be quiet, trust me.” He started walking again, approaching the open garage door.

Carl was about to follow him, but Mikey’s voice made him stop in his tracks. “Carl, wait.”

Carl turned his head and gave the other boy a questioning glance.

“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a second?”

Carl nodded slowly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cal disappear into the garage. “What about?”

“I wanted to say thank you for letting me come with you today. Haven’t been out there in ages. And I know you didn’t wanna take me at first. I know I’m pretty much useless out there. So thanks,” Mikey told him in a subdued voice.

“You’re not useless,” Carl replied, shaking his head. “I mean, not more useless than Cal is,” he added jokingly.

Mikey let out a small chuckle. “That doesn’t make me feel better. And don’t let him hear you say that.”

Carl smiled faintly.

“Will you let me come back out there with you guys?” Mikey asked, fingers playing with the sleeves of his sweater. “There’s not much to do at home and I actually had a lot of fun losing against Cal and watching the two of you fight. I promise I won’t make trouble like Ron. I don’t have much experience against the roamers but I promise I’ll do my best not to be a total coward.”

“I didn’t think you were a coward.” Carl frowned.

Mikey let out a small, nervous laugh. “Really? I thought you’d think I was. That you thought all of us inside here are.”

Carl thought about that for a second, then shook his head. “When I first came here, I thought you people were weak, and that you’d make us weak. But that was because of how you guys live, not _you_. Not after what you said happened to you. I mean, you weren’t out there fighting, but when you had to wait for weeks in that place…” He couldn’t picture it. He couldn’t picture being trapped in the boiler room with his dead mum, having to live with all the guilt and fear and not even knowing if someone would come for him in the end or if he would starve to death alone. He looked up at Mikey. “Trust me, I don’t think you’re weak at all.”

The smile that Mikey gave him was small, but genuine. “Thanks,” he said quietly. “We should better head inside before Rosemary comes out and lectures us in that sweet but passive-aggressive voice for being late.” He turned towards the door, then abruptly moved back, pulling the knife Carl had given him in the woods from the pocket of his jeans. “I forgot to give this back before.”

Carl shook his head, hand reaching out to push back Mikey’s hand. “No. Keep it. You’re gonna need it.”

 

* * *

 

School today was as boring as it had been every day for the past week, aka since the beginning. At least he didn’t have to suffer through it alone. Ron kept pretending he didn’t exist for the whole two hours, but if he was completely honest Carl didn’t mind so much. Not when Enid was passing him notes and Cal and Mikey insisted on hearing his opinion on names for the cat. After Rosemary reminded them for the seventh time to be quiet, they resorted to sneakily debate about names on a piece of paper. In the end, about five minutes before they could go, Cal and Mikey decided on Catniss because she had survived in the woods for so long – she was the last cat standing.

After saying goodbye to the other teens, Carl and Cal made their way back to House 1. Carl wondered if his dad was back already. Probably not. Was he safe? He knew the chances of anything truly horrific happening today, after everything they’d survived, were slim, but there was no way to drive out the nagging voice in his head telling him his dad might not come back after all, at least not unharmed. Going out the walls with Mikey and Cal had distracted him for long enough, but he couldn’t ignore the worried bits of himself any longer, the part of him that felt anxious about his dad’s absence and the fact he hadn’t made it back yet.

He stayed quiet as the two of them entered the living room. Cal didn’t say anything either as he approached his brother, who was sitting on the sofa. There was no one else around but Rosita and Eugene in the kitchen area. Carl stood next to the other teen, not wanting to be alone with his stupid thoughts. Maybe he could convince him to play some poker.

Cal leaned his arms against the back of the sofa. “Heya.”

“What did you do today, Cal?” Eli asked, his head turned as he spoke to him, glancing from Cal to Carl, his eyes narrowed.

Cal gave his older brother a big grin, revealing a row of straight white teeth. “Played videogames at Mikey’s until we had to go to school.” Damn, he was a good liar. The only reason Carl saw through him was that he’d literally been with him all day and knew how much of the truth he was leaving out.

Eli moved so slowly up from the sofa it reminded Carl of a cat. Not a pregnant harmless wobbling cat like Catniss, no. More like a tiger stalking its prey before it would rip it to bloody shreds. “I think you should go now, Carl.”

Carl crossed his arms in front of his chest, staring up at Eli. This was his house, too. Eli had no right to tell him to leave.

“Must have been a boring day, just mind-numbing videogames and school,” Eli said. There was an edge to his voice. _He knows_ , Carl thought. _Fuck_.

Cal laughed, shaking his head. “Wouldn’t say that, I know you’d hate them, but they’re really fun. School not so much, you’re right.”

Eli chuckled, his hand reaching out to rest against his little brother’s neck. “Never played a single video game in my life and I don’t regret it. Come on, I’ve got something I need to talk to you about in private.”

Carl watched the both of them walk into their room on the ground floor. They disappeared from his sight after Eli forcefully shut the door. Carl glanced towards the kitchen, where Rosita and Eugene were loudly doing the dishes. He couldn’t eavesdrop without the two of them noticing his behaviour, and there was a big chance he wouldn’t even hear anything through the wooden door with the clattering from the kitchen. _Shit_. Then he remembered, there was another way. Quickly making his way out of the house and around it, he crouched below the open window. Cal had said he preferred it open, and so Eli kept it that way.

“-so you stayed with Mikey the whole day, that’s great. He must be a good friend.”

“He is, yeah. But so is Carl.”

Carl fought the smile when he heard Cal mention him, only to remember that no one was there to see his expression. It didn’t matter if he smiled right now.

“Carl – did you see him at all today, except for just now?” Eli asked.

“Of course, yeah, he came to visit me and Mikey, and obviously I’m seeing him in class.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all,” Cal said, his tone light and elated.

“And running off into the woods, that wasn’t part of your day then, was it?” There was that cutting edge in Eli’s voice again.

Carl’s heart sank. He wanted nothing more than to stand up and glance inside the room, to see their faces. He’d only known Eli for a bit longer than a week, but even with the little knowledge he had he could picture his expression clearly: jaw clenched, mouth pressed into a thin line, his eyes doing that thing that Carl had to admit scared the crap out of him sometimes. 

“Uh, no, you’re right, that wasn’t part of my day,” Cal replied. Carl couldn’t decide if he tried to sound clueless or if it was sarcasm.

“So when I _saw_ you climb back over the walls from outside with Carl, that was all in my mind then, was it?”

“Probably, yeah.”

“Yeah, of course I would only imagine that. Because the truth would be too crazy. Why would you run off into the woods? Why would you risk your own fucking life again when, for the first time in years, we’ve reached a point of safety?”

“Eli-“

“Safety that I provided for you, by tolerating all these fucking idiots around us! We’ve never belonged to a group, and we still don’t. But here I am, pretending, just to keep you safe. Like I’ve kept you safe my entire life-“

“But, you failed at that, didn’t you?” Cal let out a laugh. Carl winced. It didn’t sound like when he’d been laughing outside in the woods, carefree and lively. “They still took me, and there was nothing you could do-“

“Don’t you dare say that.” Eli had never sounded more furious and hurt at the same time. “I did everything, _everything_ , to keep you with me. And I got you back. I always will. Unless you leave me. Like you did today.”

“I can go outside the walls if I want to-“

“No, you fucking can’t,” Eli yelled. “Don’t be so stupid, Cal! Out there, _alone_ , you could get killed any minute, and then what? You’d leave me in this shithole without you?”

Carl couldn’t help it anymore, he had to see what was going on. Slowly, he pushed himself up from the ground, just enough that he could peer into the open window. Eli was probably too enraged anyway to notice his spying.

Inside the bedroom, Cal was sitting on the bed, his hands balled into the sheets. Eli was towering above him, livid.

“I wasn’t alone though. And nothing would have happened, we were being safe. We could have defended ourselves,” Cal mumbled. “I wasn’t leaving you at all. You always make everything about yourself. It had nothing to do with you, I wasn’t thinking of you when I snuck out.”

Eli let out a dark chuckle. “But that’s it, isn’t it? You weren’t thinking of me. Because you were just thinking of yourself, not anyone else. Because if you were thinking of me, you wouldn’t have left. You’re a selfish fucking prick, you know that?” His hands reached out to grasp Cal’s shirt in his hands, pulling him up from the bed. “You’re so fucking selfish, but I still love you. I fucking love you, but you’d still do that shit to me?”

“You’re calling me selfish? I’m just like mum then. Selfishness must run in the family.” Cal stared back at Eli.

Eli opened his mouth, seemingly speechless for a few seconds. “Don’t fucking talk about her like that!” The hand holding onto his brother’s shirt gripped tighter, starting to shake him. “Don’t you dare! She was our mum!” The shaking became faster, more erratic as Eli held onto his brother’s shoulders, his voice a fierce and furious power. Cal was no longer looking at his older brother, no, his eyes were clenched shut. “You’re not leaving me. You’re going to stay safe now. Do you hear me? You’re not fucking lying to me agai-”

“Stop.” Since no one had heard the clicking sound of the safety going off, Carl had to raise his voice to get their attention.

Eli turned around abruptly, his eyes lowering to glance down at the gun being pointed at him through the open window. “We’re doing this again, Carl? I thought we had established you’re too scared to shoot me.”

“Try me.” Carl kept his voice steady, although Eli was absolutely right. Shooting at Eli would be the stupidest thing he could do right now, but still, reaching the gun had been the first thing on his mind – so he’d done it without thinking of what would happen next.

Eli let out a hollow laugh. “You’re seriously thinking I’m hurting him, are you? Like I would ever hurt my own brother. You’re sick.” Eli did look at him like he was crazy, his hands letting go of his brother’s shirt. Cal stumbled back a few steps

“You were yelling and shaking him,” Carl argued.

Eli turned around so that he was fully facing the window. “I would never harm him. I protect him. You wouldn’t understand. Sometimes, we have to yell at the people we love if they’ve done something bad. Because we love them. You wouldn’t understand because Rick lets you get away with everything-“

“He doesn’t,” Carl interrupted him, annoyed. Eli was so far off it was ridiculous. If his father let him do everything he wanted to do he would be on that mission right now.

“Cal is the only person I would never hurt. He’s family. But you? I wouldn’t think twice about hurting you so you better put that thing away right now,” Eli threatened.

“Eli. Don’t.” Cal moved forward to stand between them.

Carl slowly lowered the gun, then tucked it back into the belt of his jeans. 

Carl swore no one had ever looked at him with so much hate as Eli did right now. Not even Ron. As he looked back up to his brother, the hate mostly disappeared, being replaced by bitterness. “We’re not done yet,” Eli muttered before stalking out of the room. Carl wondered if he’d meant him or his little brother.

Cal bit his lip, looking back at the door Eli had slammed shut. When he turned back around he crouched down a little, now eye to eye with Carl who was still standing outside in the grass. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“You’re wrong,” Carl replied. “He was hurting you.”

“He wasn’t. He wouldn’t. We just fight sometimes. He can get really passionate, especially when I bring up mum,” he said, the last part a murmur so quiet it was barely audible.

Carl was dying to know what had happened to Cal’s and Eli’s mother, but now would be the worst time to ask. Maybe Cal was right. He had overreacted, and he didn’t really know a lot about the two brothers to understand them, especially Eli. “You’re right, but I still _had_ to do it. I just had to get him to stop.” Cal had looked so hurt, like he was nearly crying. How could he just have watched the fight without stepping in?

Cal nodded, then stuck his hand out through the open window. Carl grasped it, trying to crawl up inside the room through the frame. He did manage, although he nearly cracked his head on the upper window frame. “Are you not mad at me for threatening your brother with a gun?” Not that this had been the first time, but Cal didn’t know that.

Cal shook his head. “You wouldn’t have shot him.”

“How do you know that?” Carl wanted to know.

“Because if you wanted to kill him, you wouldn’t have made me watch. You would have waited until the two of you were alone to do it.”

Carl raised one eyebrow at him. “You make me sound like a serial killer or something.”

“I don’t know.” Cal shrugged. “Maybe you are. Also, like, I wouldn’t be your friend anymore if you shot my brother in front of me.”

“I’ve got a secret to tell you. No one else knows. You’ll be the first – the first person I can reveal my true self to.” Carl slowly stepped closer to him until he was so close he could see the barely-there redness in Cal’s eyes. Maybe he had cried a little without anyone noticing. Carl leaned towards his ear. “I have killed people. More than anyone of the group combined. It all started in kindergarten. When I couldn’t stand my teachers… I made them disappear. See, I found this little notebook and when I would write someone’s name in it… they died.”

Cal chuckled, his hands coming up to push him away. “Shut up.”

_Made you laugh_ , Carl thought. Sadly Cal’s good mood only lasted a few moments, his face quickly turning back to the way it was before they’d started joking around. He wondered what the other teenager was thinking about. Probably his brother. Since he didn’t know what it was like fighting with your sibling – and he never would, why would he ever be mean to Judith? – he thought back to fighting with his mother. He had to think about the way she had raised her voice, the way he’d shouted back at her, saying the meanest things he could think of to hurt her, and then, the total disappointment in her voice. Once the fight was temporarily broken up, he’d always been afraid that she would hate him forever now, that she would not forgive him for saying all those things. But every single time, they had made up. She had come to talk to him, they had both apologised, and often, those talks ended up in her giving him a tight hug, telling him how much she loved him no matter what. Never once had they skipped that last part of fighting. Never once, except for the last time. She had told him she loved him right before she died, but he’d never gotten his chance to say sorry for the things he said to her before. And then he shot her.

He truly couldn’t stand Eli, but the two brothers had to be okay again. Even a blind man could see how much the fighting was hurting Cal. Carl just wanted to make it okay again, but he was the last person who could mend things between the two. Part of him wanted to make another joke to get the other teen to laugh again, but he was almost certain that wouldn’t work. He wished he was Maggie right now. She always knew what to do in these situations.

Cal bit his lip, staring out the window. When Carl followed his gaze, he could see him look at the wall separating Alexandria from the outside world. Did he regret sneaking out?

Carl only had to reach out a few centimetres for the back of his fingers to bump against Cal’s. Carefully, he slipped his hand into the other boy’s hand, their fingers slowly fitting together.

“Carl-“ Cal’s gaze travelled from their entwined hands up to his face.

Carl squeezed his hand, careful, in order not to hurt him. Cal’s fingers were a few shades paler than his own. “That’s what friends do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: The boys in the picture are Eli and Cal, by the way.


End file.
